Do Appearances Still Matter at the Sentencing Phase of a Capital Trial?
The idea of protecting the defendant from unfair prejudice that results from visual signals motivates the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Deck. The majority acknowledges that at the sentencing phase, a jury has already found the defendant guilty of capital murder and therefore no longer presumes innocence, as it must do during the guilt phase of the trial. However, notes Justice Breyer for a seven-Justice majority, the sentencing phase of a capital trial is an extremely important event too. It determines whether the defendant will live or die. And anything that might prejudice the jury – by suggesting, for example, that this defendant is especially dangerous – should be off-limits. This may be an even greater concern at sentencing, as the majority argues, where dangerousness is “often a statutory aggravator and nearly always a relevant factor in jury decisionmaking.” This is all true. And unnecessarily suggesting to a jury that some defendant is especially dangerous would indeed
