The state Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing hearing...

The state Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing hearing for Michael Lemark Ward, ruling that a lawyer's comment about the defendant's silence violated his rights.The judge in the sentencing hearing for Ward should have intervened when the attorney made the remarks. The U.S. and state constitutions say that a defendant's right to remain silent following an arrest cannot be used to infer guilt. A prosecutor commenting on the defendant's decision to exercise that right is unconstitutional. Ward was sentenced to death after his conviction for the 1998 murder of Patricia Smith King.