Executions on hold

Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court ruled this week that only juries, not judges, can send criminals to the death chamber. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court’s 7-2 majority, said that letting a judge decide whether a crime was cruel or heinous enough to warrant death “senselessly diminished” a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. The decision called into question the sentences of more than 150 death-row inmates in Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, and Nebraska, who were convicted by juries but sentenced by judges. Four other states—Florida, Alabama, Delaware, and Indiana—may have to change their capital-punishment laws, because they give judges final say after jurors deliver an advisory verdict on whether a killer should live or die.

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