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Public defenders in Kentucky challenging prosecutorial discretion in capital cases

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this local article, which is headlined "Kenton County case to be used as Ky. death penalty test," state public defenders in Kentucky are making a broad challenge to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in death penalty cases.  Here are the basics: Kentucky's public defenders have picked a Kenton County homicide case to challenge the constitutionality of allowing prosecutors to decide whether to seek the death penalty. A person who commits a crime in one county may face death while a person who commits the same crime in another county may not face death.  That practice makes Kentucky's death penalty process "arbitrary and capricious," public defender Joanne Lynch argued Thursday in Kenton Circuit Court. She is representing Marion "Timmy" Lawson Parker III, 27, of Covington...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on July 03, 2010 (boomark / email).