Decision prompts review of death-row cases

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that a jury, not a judge, must determine whether a capital defendant gets the death penalty.

This decision could ultimately take more people off death rows than any other ruling in decades.

By a vote of 7 to 2, the court ruled that Arizona's death-sentencing law violates the constitutional guarantee of a jury trial.

Under that law, judges alone decide whether a crime includes "aggravating" factors, such as extreme brutality, that call for capital punishment.

Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nebraska have similar laws and with Arizona have a combined death-row population of 168.

The ruling sent all the state attorneys general, including Missouri's, scurrying to review the cases of all death-row inmates to determine who might be affected.

Attorney General Jay Nixon said his office would spend the next several weeks reviewing all of Missouri's death-row cases.

Marty Robinson, director of the state's public defender office, predicted a flurry of court action seeking new trials, new sentencing or commutations.

Missouri law allows judges to impose the death penalty in some cases, most often when the same jury that convicted a defendant deadlocks about sentencing.

One question that arises out of the ruling is what to do with those cases in which a judge imposed the sentence following a guilty plea by the defendant and in which no jury trial was held.

Four of 12 Missouri death sentences imposed by judges fall into this category, according to Nixon. It is likely that these will have to be the subject of new trials.

The certain result is that there will follow years of litigation on many of the 68 Missouri death-penalty cases now pending, as well as those in other states.