The Death Penalty Project, an inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vides free legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for indi­vid­u­als fac­ing the death penal­ty in the Caribbean and Africa, recent­ly pub­lished A Guide to Sentencing in Capital Cases. The guide pro­vides judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and defense attor­neys with infor­ma­tion and sam­ple appeals to help them nav­i­gate the sen­tenc­ing phase in cas­es where a manda­to­ry death sen­tence for a spe­cif­ic crime was abol­ished, leav­ing the for­mer death row inmate to be resen­tenced.

In the past few years, coun­tries such as Uganda and Malawi have ruled that manda­to­ry death penal­ty sen­tences are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, leav­ing the death penal­ty up to the dis­cre­tion of the courts. Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia are also con­sid­er­ing sim­i­lar chal­lenges to their manda­to­ry death sen­tence poli­cies. The Death Penalty Project’s guide helps court offi­cials to bet­ter under­stand these new pro­ce­dur­al issues and how aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stance are applied in these cases. 

(E. Fitzgerald & K. Starmer, A Guide to Sentencing in Capital Cases (2007). Posted December 13, 2007). Get infor­ma­tion on the Guide here. See also Resources and International.

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