(Click left image to enlarge). A new study by researchers at Cornell University exam­ined the effects of Delaware​’s deci­sion to trans­fer cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing author­i­ty from the jury to the judge at tri­al. The study used data from cap­i­tal cas­es between 1977 and 2007, dur­ing which time Delaware made the shift to judge sen­tenc­ing – one of very few states to employ that pro­ce­dure. According to the study, ​“Judges were sig­nif­i­cant­ly more like­ly to give a defen­dant the death sen­tence than were juries.” During the era when Delaware relied on juries for sen­tenc­ing, about 20% of cap­i­tal cas­es result­ed in death sen­tences. In the era when it relied sole­ly on judges, 53% of the cas­es were giv­en death sen­tences. Today, the state has a hybrid mod­el in which a jury must unan­i­mous­ly find the exis­tence of at least one aggra­vat­ing fac­tor beyond a rea­son­able doubt to make a case death eli­gi­ble. The jury then makes a sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion to the judge, which is giv­en appropriate consideration.

The authors raised the ques­tion of whether judge sen­tenc­ing in cap­i­tal cas­es is con­sti­tu­tion­al under the Sixth and Eighth Amendments. Noting the Supreme Court’s focus on the coun­try’s ​“evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy” when exam­in­ing sen­tenc­ing, the authors com­ment­ed, ​“The fact that only a few states cur­rent­ly allow judges to impose death sen­tences ren­ders the prac­tice sus­pect on that basis. Our research shows that the replace­ment of juries by judges has a strong and sig­nif­i­cant impact, increas­ing the like­li­hood of death sen­tences. This is also out of step with the dwin­dling num­ber of death sen­tences imposed by juries.”

(V. Hans, et al., ​“The Death Penalty: Should the Judge or the Jury Decide Who Dies?,” work­ing paper, October, 2014; DPIC post­ed Nov. 5, 2014). See Studies, Sentencing and Ring v. Arizona (pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion on each state’s sentencing schemes).

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