Delaware Supreme Court Declares State’s Death Penalty Unconstitutional

The Delaware Supreme Court on August 2 declared the state’s cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, leav­ing Delaware with­out a valid death penal­ty statute. In the case of Benjamin Rauf v. State of Delaware, the court held that Delaware’s death sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures vio­late the con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ples recent­ly set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2016 deci­sion in Hurst v. Florida. Hurst stat­ed that a cap­i­tal defen­dan­t’s Sixth Amendment right to tri­al by jury requires ​“a jury, not a judge, to find each fact nec­es­sary to impose a sen­tence of death.” 

Four mem­bers of the Delaware high court ruled that the state’s cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly empow­ers judges, rather than jurors, to decide whether the pros­e­cu­tion has proven the exis­tence of aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances that are con­sid­ered in deter­min­ing whether to impose for the death penal­ty. They wrote that the jury must unan­i­mous­ly find those facts to have been proven beyond a rea­son­able doubt before a death sen­tence may be considered. 

In an opin­ion by Chief Justice Leo Strine, Jr., a nar­row­er 3‑justice major­i­ty of the court also ruled that the facts nec­es­sary to impose a death penal­ty in Delaware includ­ed a find­ing that aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances out­weigh mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances (rea­sons to spare the defen­dan­t’s life). Delaware’s statute vio­lates the Sixth Amendment, they wrote, because it does not require as a pre­req­ui­site to the death penal­ty that jurors unan­i­mous­ly agree that aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances out­weigh mit­i­ga­tion beyond a reasonable doubt. 

The court said the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al sen­tenc­ing pro­vi­sions were insev­er­able from the rest of the death penal­ty statute, and that any changes to the statute would have to be made by the leg­is­la­ture. However, recent leg­isla­tive activ­i­ty sug­gests that a bill restor­ing the state’s abil­i­ty to impose death sen­tences may have difficulty passing. 

Calling the death penal­ty ​“an instru­ment of imper­fect jus­tice,” Governor Jack Markell has indi­cat­ed that he would sign a bill to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment if it passed the leg­is­la­ture. Such a bill passed the state Senate in 2013 and 2015 and was released by the House Judiciary Committee for con­sid­er­a­tion by the full House, where it nar­row­ly failed ear­li­er this year. Professor Eric Freedman, a death penal­ty expert at the Hofstra University School of Law, said “[t]his prob­a­bly means, as a prac­ti­cal mat­ter, the end of the death penal­ty in Delaware.”

Justice James Vaughn Jr. dis­sent­ed from the rul­ing. State pros­e­cu­tors have 15 days to seek recon­sid­er­a­tion of the deci­sion and have the option to seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court. They have not yet indi­cat­ed whether they will appeal.

(E. Eckholm, ​“Delaware Supreme Court Rules State’s Death Penalty Unconstitutional,” New York Times, August 2, 2016; C. Geidner, ​“Delaware Supreme Court Rules That State’s Death Penalty Law Is Unconstitutional,” BuzzFeed News, August 2, 2016; J. Masulli Reyes, ​“Top court: Delaware’s death penal­ty law uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” The News Journal, August 2, 2016.) Read the deci­sion in Rauf v. Delaware. See Sentencing and Recent Legislation.