In a surprise turnaround, the state Senate on Tuesday voted to retain the so-called proportionality review for death-penalty cases after a key lawmaker said its removal would make the state's capital punishment law vulnerable to a legal attack.
Sen. Seth Harp (R-Midland) told fellow senators that if the requirement were removed, it would prompt new appeals and cause delays of five to 10 years before death sentences can be carried out.
"It'll give the lawyers who defend these creatures a whole ‘nother round of appeals," he said.
The proportionality review, conducted by the Georgia Supreme Court in every death-penalty appeal, is intended to guard against the possibility of a capital sentence being arbitrarily imposed.
Sen. John Wiles (R-Kennesaw) supported the review being removed, noting Georgia is the only state that has such a review required by law. The review's removal would mean less work for the state Supreme Court, which has not overturned a death sentence on proportionality grounds since 1981, he said.
Atlanta lawyer Kristen Nugent said Tuesday that when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Georgia's death-penalty statute in 1976, "the language of the decision indicated that the state's inclusion of the proportionality review process was essential to its holding."
In recent years, U.S. Supreme Court justices have expressed divergent views on the importance of the proportionality review to Georgia's capital sentencing scheme, said Nugent, who wrote a 2009 law review article on Georgia's review. But if the requirement is removed, she predicted, "defense attorneys would have new grounds to challenge the constitutionality of Georgia's death-penalty statute."
The provision to strip the review from state law had been attached to House Bill 323, which would give the Georgia Supreme Court more time to decide whether it should hear a death-penalty appeal. After the Senate Judiciary Committee recently approved H.B. 323, Harp, chairman of the panel, said he supported removing the review from state law. On Tuesday, Harp had reversed course. He told his Senate colleagues if they supported the death penalty they should vote for his amendment to remove the proportionality review provision from the bill so the review remains a part of state law. It passed overwhelmingly.
When conducting its review, the state Supreme Court upholds a death sentence if it can find capital sentences handed down in similar murder cases to show the death sentence being affirmed is not disproportionate or excessive. The court's review has been criticized for being cursory because the justices typically do not compare a death sentence with other similar cases that resulted in life sentences.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
