[Download] "Caldwell v. Mississippi" by Supreme Court of the United States # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details

Title: Caldwell v. Mississippi
Author : Supreme Court of the United States
Release Date : January 11, 1985
Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
Pages : * pages
Size : 77 KB

Description

This case presents the issue whether a capital sentence is valid when the sentencing jury is led to believe that responsibility for determining the appropriateness of a death sentence rests not with the jury but with the appellate court which later reviews the case. In this case, a prosecutor urged the jury not to view itself as determining whether the defendant would die, because a death sentence would be reviewed for correctness by the State Supreme Court. We granted certiorari, 469 U.S. 879 (1984), to consider petitioners contention that the prosecutors argument rendered the capital sentencing proceeding inconsistent with the Eighth Amendments heightened "need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case." Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 305 (1976) (plurality opinion). Agreeing with the contention, we vacate the sentence.