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posted by takyon on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the deathlock dept.

An Alabama inmate was put to death by lethal injection on Thursday after a deadlocked Supreme Court refused to stay his execution, The Associated Press reported. The inmate, Ronald B. Smith, had been sentenced to death by a judge despite a jury's recommendation of life without parole.

Mr. Smith was convicted in 1995 of murdering Casey Wilson, a convenience store clerk, the previous year. By a vote of 7 to 5, the jury rejected the death penalty and recommended a sentence of life without parole. The judge overrode that recommendation, sentencing Mr. Smith to death.

[...] In January, the Supreme Court struck down Florida's capital sentencing system, which also allowed judicial overrides of jury recommendations of life sentences. "The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death,"

Should judges be allowed to overrule a jury's decision for sentencing?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/us/politics/alabama-ronald-bert-smith-execution-supreme-court.html?0p19G=c&_r=0


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  • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Monday December 12 2016, @01:26AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday December 12 2016, @01:26AM (#440155) Journal

    Arbitrary, and capricious can really be improved on by listening to the jury, IMO.

    No, its the real Runaway, see, you can tell by the grammar and syntax, and the total inability to say what he means. Yes, that is what we want from a jury trial, "improved arbitrariness and capriciousness". "Improved" as in "higher quality", with some real class, like Trump Justice? Or just quantitatively?

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