Sentencing

Sentencing is defined in criminal law as a punishment ordered by the court for a person convicted of criminal activity. Sentences usually consist of fines, corporal punishment, imprisonment including life, capital punishment, and/ or a combination of each. The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution states: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”5 This bill can cause controversy in sentencing a convicted murderer to capital punishment when emphasizing the words, “cruel and unusual punishment.” In the case of Warden v. Sanders3, eligibility of capital punishment was the focus that further defined criminal rights regarding cruel and unusual punishments. Sanders was convicted of first degree murder and the jury found four “special circumstances,’ that made him eligible of capital punishment under California Penal Code 190.2. In the penalty phase the jury considered a list of sentencing factors as instructed by California Penal Code 190.3(a) which states, “The circumstances of the crime of which the defendant was convicted in the present proceeding and the existence of any special circumstances found to be true pursuant to Section 190.1.”1

The state supreme court invalidated two of the “special circumstances” on direct appeal, but affirmed the conviction and sentence. The Federal District Court denied Sanders habeas relief by rejecting his claim that the jury’s consideration of invalid “special circumstances” rendered his death sentence unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit Court applied rules for weighing states rather than for non-weighting states. The weighing states apply rules stated in Stringer v. Black as,” The principal - and critical - difference between the two schemes is that Mississippi, unlike Georgia, is a "weighing"

State, in which a jury that has found a defendant guilty of capital murder and found at least one statutory aggravating factor must weigh such factors against the mitigating evidence. Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 890 , expressly left open the possibility that, in a weighing State, infection of the process with an invalid aggravating factor might require invalidation of the death sentence.”2 The decision was therefore reversed by finding that Sanders had been unconstitutionally deprived of an individualized death sentence.

After applying Furman v. Georgia, thus limiting the classification of eligible death sentences, Warden v. Sanders3 still met those requirements and revealed a troubling issue when considering eligibility factors of the death sentence. Eligibility factors that are later invalidated in the sentencing phase but were valid in the conviction phase would alter the weighing process on the death sentence because the jury would apply those invalidated facts in the “circumstances of the crime” sentencing factor.

Non-weighing states take a slightly different approach in the sentencing of capital punishment. In Zant v. Stephens,4 the sentencing phase instructed the jury that it was authorized to consider all of the evidence received during the conviction phase of the trial as well as all facts of aggravation found to be true during the sentencing phase in order to impose the death penalty. The jury found that the respondent had a prior conviction of a capital felony, that he had history of serious assault convictions. The jury also found that the murder was committed by an escapee. The convicted criminal had an appeal pending that was ultimately denied. Before the denial of the appeal the Georgia Supreme Court considered aggravating circumstances