Washington ? The Supreme Court waded deeper into the death penalty debate Monday with a case that could overturn 800 death sentences nationally and another case seeking extra appeals for the condemned.

Death sentences in nine states could be affected by the court’s ruling in the case of Timothy Stuart Ring in Arizona, convicted of killing of an armored car driver during a robbery eight years ago.

The court is expected to decide by summer whether a defendant’s constitutional right to a jury trial means that only a jury can make the crucial determinations that result in a death sentence.

Currently, although juries are responsible for deciding guilt or innocence, judges decide the sentence in Arizona and eight other states.

The case, said Ring’s lawyer Andrew Hurwitz, raises “the basic constitutional principle … that before you’re handed over to the state, for the state to impose whatever punishment it can, that a jury of your peers is afforded to you.”

There are more than 800 inmates sentenced to death in the nine states that could be affected by this case. The other states are Florida Alabama, Delaware, Indiana, Montana, Idaho, Colorado and Nebraska.

Ring’s is the fourth death penalty case the court has reviewed in the current term. None of the cases attacks the essential constitutionality of capital punishment, which is imposed in 38 states.