One Ring was the One Ring. Frodo inherited the Ring from his uncle Bilbo Baggins. In Tolkien's earlier novel, "The Hobbit", Bilbo found the Ring in the caverns beneath the Misty Mountains. It had been lost in the caverns by Gollum, who used the invisibility it conferred to hunt orcs to eat. Gollum, a hobbit previously known as Sméagol, had kept the Ring for hundreds of years. He had murdered his friend Déagol to get the Ring shortly after Déagol found it in the river Anduin. Many centuries earlier the Ring had betrayed Isildur and fallen from his finger into the Anduin
Ring v. Arizona provided that the judge alone would make these findings. After a sentencing hearing, at which Ring's accomplices testified, the judge found that two aggravating factors applied: that Ring had committed the murder in expectation of pecuniary gain and that he had committed the murder in an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner. Although he found that Ring had a "minimal" criminal record, the judge concluded that this did not outweigh the aggravating factors, and sentenced Ring to death. Writing for the majority, Justice Ginsburg began with an important characterization of Arizona's capital sentencing scheme. Based solely on the jury's verdict