Delaware court says state death penalty law unconstitutional

On Tuesday, the Delaware Supreme Court reached a decision regarding the state’s death penalty law.

Delaware, Florida, and Alabama are the only states that give judges the final authority over whether to sentence a convict to death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Additionally, the state high court ruled the statute to be unconstitutional because it does not require juror unanimity in finding such aggravating circumstances and does not require the jury to find that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances presented. That determination, the court said, must be made unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt by the jury.

Because the decision is largely based on an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, state officials could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision.

The decision was deeply divided, despite the format of the ruling.

The justice agreed, however, that any problematic provision of Delaware’s death penalty law can not be severed from its other provisions so as to allow jury instructions that would comport with federal constitutional standards.

What U.S. Supreme Court precedent exists on the death penalty?

On Tuesday afternoon, the Delaware Supreme Court released a 148-page unanimous ruling that the state’s current death penalty law is an unconstitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment.

That was not, however, Strine’s conclusion – or the conclusion of the majority of the justices on the Delaware Supreme Court.

“I am satisfied that Delaware’s death penalty statute complies with the Sixth Amendment as the law on that amendment is now interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court”, Vaughn wrote. Vaughn would have upheld the statute’s constitutionality in whole. There are now 14 people on death row in DE and the state held its last execution in 2012. The important concerns of death penalty proponents must be balanced by the examples of flawed testimony, innocent people on death row being exonerated, and other facts that weigh strongly against the use capital punishment.