USA: jurors thought a gay man would enjoy prison. They sent him to death row instead

It was snowing heavily on the evening of March 8, 1992, when Charles Rhines used a key to let himself into the closed Dig ’Em Donuts shop on West Main Street in Rapid City, South Dakota. He’d been fired from the shop a few weeks earlier, but he’d kept a key. Using a flashlight, he made his way to the store’s office to steal whatever money he could find. But he was interrupted when a courier he knew from the shop, Donnivan Schaeffer, entered the office. Rhines pulled a black-handled buck knife from his bag and attacked Schaeffer, stabbing him three times.

Rhines was convicted of murdering Schaeffer the following year and sentenced to death. But lawyers appointed to handle his case say that the sentence was tainted and should be overturned. Specifically, they argue that Rhines, who is gay, was discriminated against when anti-gay bias infected the jury room, violating Rhines’s right to an impartial jury and due process. Lawyers for the state say that’s nonsense and the heinousness of the crime was what sent Rhines to death row. So far, the courts have sided with South Dakota. Rhines’s lawyers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene; on June 14, the justices are slated to decide whether to do so.

There were signs early on that the jurors deciding whether Rhines should be sentenced to life in prison or to death might have been considering more than the facts of the case before them. During deliberations, the panel sent a note out to the judge. They had a list of pointed questions about what life in prison would mean. Would Rhines have a cellmate? Would he be allowed to “create a group of followers or admirers”? Would he be allowed to “have conjugal visits”? They apologized if any of the questions were “inappropriate,” but indicated that they were important to their decision-making. The judge declined to answer, telling the jurors that all they needed to know was in the jury instructions they’d received. Eight hours later, they sentenced Rhines to death.

In the intervening years, Rhines appealed his conviction on various claims — including that his lawyers had provided ineffective assistance of counsel — but it wasn’t until late 2016 that the newly appointed federal capital defenders found the jury note and realized its significance. “That jury note jumped out at us,” said Shawn Nolan, head of the capital habeas unit of the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia (often appointed to handle capital litigation in states like South Dakota, where there is no local capital habeas unit). “It was pretty glaring that there was some anti-gay bias going on in the jury room.”

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