HENRY MONTGOMERY, PETITIONER v. LOUISIANA
Supreme Court of the United States, Kennedy, Filed Jan. 25, 2016,
(US Constitutional) Juvenile Law – Capital Punishment – The prohibition on mandatory life in prison without parole for juvenile homicide offenders set forth in Miller applies retroactively
KANSAS, PETITIONER v. JONATHAN D. CARR
KANSAS, PETITIONER v. REGINALD DEXTER CARR, JR
KANSAS, PETITIONER v. SIDNEY J. GLEASON
Supreme Court of the United States, Scalia, Filed Jan. 20, 2016,
8th Amendment – Mitigation – Jurors need not be instructed that mitigating circumstances “need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”
(Dissent – Sotomayor – because the USSC “often” declines to grant cert where “a state court has wrongly decided an important question of federal law”, this should have been denied. The dissent doesn’t disagree with the court’s actual constitutional holdings, making it an unusual dissent)
Continue reading
TIMOTHY LEE HURST, PETITIONER v. FLORIDA
Supreme Court of the United States, Sotomayor, Filed Jan. 12, 2016,
6th Amendment – Capital Punishment – “The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death.”