Nation : Death Sentence Powers Upheld

A state appeals court may uphold a murderer’s death sentence even if the sentencing jury wrongly considered some adverse evidence, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled today.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices ruled that state appeals courts are empowered to reweigh aggravating and mitigating evidence in capital punishment cases without sending them back for new jury determinations. But the court stopped short of upholding the death sentence of Chandler Clemons.

Clemons was convicted of killing a delivery man after robbing him of $5 in cash and a few pizzas in Vicksburg, Miss., three years ago. One of the aggravating factors his sentencing jury considered before imposing a death sentence was the “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel” nature of the crime.

The Mississippi Supreme Court found that such an aggravating factor is unconstitutionally vague. But rather than throw out Clemons’ sentence, the state high court ruled that the sentence would have been the same even if the impermissible factor had not been considered.