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Notable split Fourth Circuit ruling rejects various challenges to federal death sentence

By Douglas A. Berman

The majority of a Fourth Circuit panel today in US v. Caro, No. 07-5 (4th Cir. Mar. 17, 2010) (available here), rejects various challenges to a federal death sentence.  And, as detailed in this first paragraph of the dissent by Judge Gregory, at least one Eighth Amendment aspect of the ruling is controversial:  Today the majority blesses with constitutional imprimatur a death sentence that could only have been imposed after the jury found that Carlos Caro had previously been convicted of relatively minor, nonviolent drug offenses. If his sentence is ultimately carried out, Caro might well be the first, and as yet only, defendant executed after a jury found him death-eligible solely due to this type of nonviolent conduct. To reach this result, the majority applies the wrong test for deciding whether eligibility factors sufficiently narrow the class of defendants who can be executed and renders an important step in capital jurisprudence virtually useless...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 18, 2010 (boomark / email).