Nichols sentence may lead to death penalty changes

A jury's inability to condemn courthouse gunman Brian Nichols to death has re-energized efforts by Georgia lawmakers to allow a judge to consider capital punishment even if there's no unanimous verdict, as a growing chorus of officials says it's time to give the policy another look.

Seems to me it would be better to allow the DP to be imposed by a less than unanimous jury (say 9-3 or 10-2) than by a judge. Giving one person that power just doesn't sit right with me.

It sounds like something may need to be done about jurors who come on to a case assuring the court that they are willing to impose the death penalty, only to admit during deliberations that they are adamant opponents.

Yes but you are seeing people make wild judgments based on skin color and not facts. Would you want to weaken our society because people feel that skin color is more important than the crime. I will give you a couple of examples. 1) O.J. 2) Twana Brawley 3)The Duke Lacrosse team fiasco (true, they were found not guilty, but not before they had to spend alot of money in defense attorney fees, Professors ridiculing them in public, and this did ultimately did affect them with their remaining time in college) 4) There was a case in Houston where this school administrator used school funds to do some repairs to her house. She got caught, went to court but there was a deadlock on her conviction part of the trial. The reason was the jurist wanted to know how much time she would do if she was convicted. The judge told him that this was not the sentencing phase of the trial so they have to re try the case because of this. The list goes on and on. As great as our Founding Fathers were, they never imagined that we would have this many un informed and insane liberals destroying our Democracy. I still haven't heard of a black on white crime being labeled as a “hate” crime yet. The Left changes the rules as they see fit, and we are suppose to just sit back and watch? Something needs to change!

Nichols case is an outlier - its high profile makes it a poor example for driving policy changes of any kind.

What is interesting about the case (at least to me) is the fact that it is one of the very. very few that are brought as DP cases in Fulton County. The same thing applies to a lesser extent in DeKalb County.

These are the two largest jurisdictions in the state (and among the most crime plagued) but the prosecutors rarely find a murder case worthy of capital punishment. Of the 107 persons on death row in GA in October ‘08 only 7 were sent there by juries in Dekalb or Fulton. Together they have about 20% of the states’ population and (I am guessing here) a higher percentage of murders with aggravating circumstances.

In 2007 Cobb recorded 42 murders, Gwinnett 47, DeKalb 119 and Fulton 179. There is no seperate classification for aggravating circumstances. Together Cobb & Gwinnett have about 2/3 the population of their sister counties.

Rare exceptions do not make the rule. And in every trial there are always two things being decided, the guilt of the defendant and the justice of the law. Juries are always selected to pick the dumbest people. Why do you think that doctors and lawyers and people with degrees are always challenged??? The prosecution does this as well as the defense.

Yea, I have always wondered about that. I have yet been chosen to go to jury duty, which is odd, my wife has been chosen twice since I have known her, but she is is intelligent as well. Maybe she fakes being dumb better than me. But she is a looker as well, so that might help, lol. I just think with the way the court system has been ran the last 2 or 3 decades, something has to change. I am not sure what, and I don’t thnk it should be the Constitution, but something!

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