state prosecutors announced that they will not seek the death penalty for Thomas Capano...

state prosecutors announced that they will not seek the death penalty for Thomas Capano, a former millionaire influential in state politics who was convicted of murdering Anne Marie Fahey.  Capano will instead face a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. "Every criminal case has a natural end. We have reached that point in this case. I am satisfied that justice is served by having Thomas Capano spend every day of the rest of his life in prison," said
Last month, on Jan. 11 (see) the Delaware Supreme Court upheld Capano's 1999 murder conviction, but overturned his death sentence because the jury was one vote short of unanimous when deciding if the murder was the result of substantial planning. The Delaware court held that the death sentence based on a non-unanimous finding violated the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ring v. Arizona in 2002.  Deleware Attorney General Carl C. Danberg said a new death penalty sentencing hearing would be difficult because two key witnesses, Capano's brothers, who testified in 1999 did so in exchange for plea agreements with prosecutors. This time, Danberg said that prosecutors would have no leverage over the two men.
A former state deputy attorney general, Capano was convicted and initially sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Anne Marie Fahey, the scheduling secretary to then-Gov. Tom Carper, in 1996 because she was about to break off their affair. Last month the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence based on new legal considerations of whether death sentences must be voted on unanimously. In Capano's case, the jury's 11-1 vote that the murder was premeditated meant it failed to find Capano eligible for the death penalty "beyond a reasonable doubt".