MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Supreme Court in the US state of Delaware has frozen all death penalty cases while a reassessment of the constitutionality of its capital punishment system is carried out following a Florida case where the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional.
"NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS DIRECTED, with the concurrence of the Judges of the Superior Court, that all trials, penalty hearings, and applications asking this Court to declare Delaware’s capital sentencing scheme unconstitutional are temporarily stayed until the determination by the Supreme Court of Delaware of the questions of law certified in Rauf v. State of Delaware," Judge Jan Jurden said in a statement issued Monday.
Earlier in January, the Florida Supreme Court held in the case of Timothy Lee Hurst, who had been convicted of a murder and sentenced to death in 2000, that the capital sentencing scheme violates the Sixth Amendment guarantee that defendants have the right to have their verdicts decided by a jury and not the judge.