DELAWARE SUPREME COURT DECLARES STATE'S DEATH PENALTY UNCONSTITUTIONAL

The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled 3-2 that the state's capital sentencing statute is unconstitutional. In the case of Benjamin Rauf v. Delaware, the court held that the statute's sentencing procedures violated the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, as set forth in the U.S. Supreme Court's January decision in Hurst v. Florida. The Delaware court ruled that the statute was unconstitutional because it permitted a judge, rather than the jury, to make the ultimate findings of fact necessary to impose a death sentence, and because it did not require both a unanimous jury finding of every aggravating circumstance that makes a defendant eligible for the death penalty and a unanimous jury finding that those aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.