Judge Rejects Missouri’s First Jury Recommendation of Death in Nine Years, Says Mitigating Evidence Requires Life Sentence for Marvin Rice

A Missouri judge has reject­ed the state’s first jury rec­om­men­da­tion for a death sen­tence in nine years, and has instead re-sen­tenced for­mer death-row pris­on­er Marvin D. Rice (pic­tured) to life without parole.

Missouri law autho­rizes tri­al judges ​“to reduce the pun­ish­ment [rec­om­mend­ed by the jury] with­in the statu­to­ry lim­its pre­scribed for the offense if it finds that the pun­ish­ment is exces­sive.” At a resen­tenc­ing hear­ing on May 23, 2022, St. Charles County Judge Daniel Pelikan exer­cised that pow­er to sen­tence Rice to life in prison for the mur­der of his ex-girl­friend, Annette Durham, dur­ing a dis­pute over cus­tody of their child. 

Judge Pelikan issued his order from the bench, with­out a writ­ten opin­ion. However, Missouri pub­lic defend­er David Kenyon, a mem­ber of Rice’s defense team, explained in an email to the Death Penalty Information Center that Pelikan said he had found that the mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances in Rice’s case sub­stan­tial­ly out­weighed the aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances pre­sent­ed by the pros­e­cu­tion. The orga­ni­za­tion Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty report­ed that, in reach­ing his deci­sion, Pelikan said he also had con­sid­ered the fact that 11 jurors in Rice’s first tri­al in 2017 had vot­ed to sen­tence him to life. 

No state in the United States autho­rizes a judge to over­ride a jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion of a life sen­tence, and all three states that pre­vi­ous­ly per­mit­ted the prac­tice have end­ed it since 2016. Missouri law, how­ev­er, con­sid­ers a non-unan­i­mous vote a hung jury rather than a rec­om­men­da­tion, trig­ger­ing a statu­to­ry pro­vi­sion that allows the tri­al judge to inde­pen­dent­ly impose sen­tence. Judge Kelly Parker, who presided over Rice’s first tri­al, then sen­tenced him to death.

In 2019, the Missouri Supreme Court over­turned Rice’s death sen­tence, find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors in his case had made improp­er com­ments about Rice’s deci­sion not to tes­ti­fy at tri­al. Those com­ments, the court held, vio­lat­ed Rice’s rights under the Fifth Amendment, which bars the use of a defendant’s silence against him.

The court returned the case to St. Charles County for a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. Because Judge Parker had retired, the case was trans­ferred to Judge Pelikan. After a one-week sen­tenc­ing tri­al, the jury unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed that Rice be sen­tenced to death. His pub­lic defend­ers filed a motion chal­leng­ing the ver­dict, argu­ing that the sole aggra­vat­ing fac­tor that the jury relied on as the basis for its death ver­dict was not applic­a­ble in his case. Judge Pelikan denied that motion, Kenyon said, but exer­cised his statu­to­ry dis­cre­tion to sen­tenced Rice to life without parole.