Justice Sotomayor faults Ala. death sentences

[Redfairen]

Source: Associated Press

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Monday that partisan political elections for the Alabama courts appear to be driving judges' decisions to impose death sentences, overruling juries that have voted to send defendants to prison for life.

Sotomayor made her comments about Alabama in an unusual dissent after she and Justice Stephen Breyer were the only two justices who voted to hear an appeal from a death row inmate who was convicted of killing a Montgomery, Ala., police officer. It takes the votes of four of the nine justices to hear a case.

Alabama, Delaware and Florida are the only states that allow trial judges to override jury sentencing decisions in capital-punishment cases. And since 2000, Alabama accounts for 26 of the 27 defendants who have been sentenced to death despite a jury's vote for life in prison, Sotomayor said. The other case was in Delaware. In that case, the state Supreme Court changed the trial judge's death sentence to a life prison term.

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"Alabama judges, who are elected in partisan proceedings, appear to have succumbed to electoral pressures," she wrote. Sotomayor noted that one judge who has overridden jury votes six times also has run campaign ads voicing support for capital punishment.

Read more: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20131118/DAA56H000.htmlLink to source

[weissmam]

1. Think about it

some low life judge is willing to have unnecessary blood on his hands for political gain