Mo. High Court Overturns Death Sentences

Guardian ^ | 10/29/03 | David Lieb

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - The Missouri Supreme Court has re-sentenced three death row inmates to life in prison because judges, not juries, had decided they deserved to be executed for their murders.

The decisions affecting inmates Antonio Richardson, Andre Morrow and Keith Smith follow a ruling last year by the U.S. Supreme Court that the constitutional right to a trial by jury also applies to death sentences.

In a June decision, the state Supreme Court said it would apply the federal decision retroactively to inmates on Missouri's death row.

In three separate orders Tuesday, the court said juries in each case had failed to find every fact required by state law as a prerequisite to the death sentence before judges took over the sentencing job.

Before Tuesday, the court already had re-sentenced two other convicted killers to life in prison because judges had imposed their death sentences after juries deadlocked on the appropriate punishment.

Death penalty opponents were heartened by the state Supreme Court's decisions.

``I think the Missouri Supreme Court is being quite appropriate in supporting that basic foundation of our society,'' said Jeff Stack of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty.

[Congressman Billybob]

This is a fatally defective piece of reporting. A necessary part of honest reporting on this subject would be to describe exactly what these three "gentlemen" did, to be sentenced to death. Then, the readers would be able to reach a conclusion whether the judge-made law, both on the US Supreme Court and the Missouri Supreme Court, was responsible for a gross miscarriage of justice.

Keep in mind that for some 500 years before the US Supreme Court rewrote the Constitution, it waws the business of juries to find the facts of the case, but once that wqas done, it was the job of judges alone to impose the death penalty if it was warranted.

Congressman Billybob

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