Delaware Supreme Court Gets Hurst Wrong

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Crime & Consequences: Delaware Supreme Court Gets Hurst Wrong

August 2, 2016 1:29 PM | Posted by Kent Scheidegger | 0 Comments

When Hurst v. Florida was decided earlier this year, I wrote a post titled Dangerously Sloppy Language in the Hurst v. Florida Opinion. Sure enough, four of the five justices of the Delaware Supreme Court have now decided that the state's long-established and thoroughly vetted death penalty statute is unconstitutional. That would be true only if one sloppy piece of obiter dictum wipes out the distinction between the eligibility decision and the selection decision crafted over decades and clearly set forth in numerous U.S. Supreme Court opinions.

 

The case is Rauf v. State. See Justice Vaughn's dissent for the correct answers.

 

Does Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn have the requisite vertebrae to petition for certiorari? Let's hope so.