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Georgia's Conservative Politicians Want More Death

By TChris

pIf a unanimous verdict is required to convict, it is sensible to think that a unanimous verdict should be required to impose a death sentence. Sensible thought has eluded Georgia#39;s conservative politicians who (as Jeralyn noted a href="http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/12/17/214945/45"here/a) have a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/us/17death.html"declared war/a on the unanimity requirement because a href="http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/12/13/2136/5672"only nine jurors/a voted to kill a href="http://www.talkleft.com/search?string=brian+nichols"Brian Nichols/a./p blockquoteNow, just days after the decision, Georgia legislators have begun lining up to introduce bills eliminating the requirement that juries be unanimous for a death sentence. Hard-on-crime lawmakers have long favored easier rules on death sentencing, but the Nichols sentence has given new urgency to their cause./blockquote pThe argument that some a href="http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/02/17/389/50793""death qualified"/a jurors are secretly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances would be easier to swallow if only one juror dissented from death. When a quarter of the jurors think the case for death hasn#39;t been made, only those overcome by blood lust could believe the defendant should be executed. [more ...] /p pBasing the ultimate punishment on anything less than unanimity is of dubious constitutionality./p blockquoteCarol Steiker, a death penalty expert at Harvard Law School, said it could violate the 14th Amendment guarantee of due process and the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Although the Supreme Court allows non-unanimous juries in many cases, Ms. Steiker said, death sentences require the highest standards. p#8220;As the Supreme Court tends to say, #8216;Death is different,#8217; #8221; she said. #8220;It#8217;s different in severity and it#8217;s different in finality. This case really illustrates one of the problems with states trying to maintain thoughtful and circumscribed death penalty rules. There#8217;s incredible pressure on these legislatures to change the laws at critical moments after high-profile cases.#8221;/p/blockquote pRather than recognizing that Nichols#39; lawyers did an outstanding job of persuading jurors that there was more to Nichols than than his horrific actions on a single day of his life, Georgia#39;s conservatives are blaming the defense attorneys for getting in the way of a nice clean execution./p blockquoteState Senator Preston W. Smith, a Rome Republican, accused defense lawyers of spending like #8220;drunken sailors on shore leave#8221; to provide an #8220;O. J. Simpson-style defense, all on the taxpayer#8217;s dime.#8221;/blockquote pNever mind that the prosecution spent $3 million to convict Nichols. It#39;s always the cost of defense that#39;s viewed as a waste of money -- particularly when the defense is successful./pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=NnZw9a9k"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=g6OLKpcE"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?d=43" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=IeHEkWCF"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?i=IeHEkWCF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=WHG6SBKH"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?a=n589uOgd"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime?d=52" border="0"/img/a /div

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 17, 2008 (boomark / email).