Case Title: Rauf v. Delaware

Citation: 

Docket Number: 39, 2016

State: delaware

Court: Delaware Supreme Court

Date: 2016-08-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
BENJAMIN RAUF, 
 
Defendant-Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee. 
 
§ 
§  No. 39, 2016 
§ 
§  Certification of Question of Law 
§  from the Superior Court  
§  of the State of Delaware   
§   
§  Cr. ID No. 1509009858 
§  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Submitted: June 15, 2016 
 
 
 
 
Decided: 
August 2, 2016 
 
Before STRINE, Chief Justice; HOLLAND, VALIHURA, VAUGHN, and 
SEITZ, Justices, constituting the Court en Banc. 
 
Certification of questions of law from the Superior Court.  Questions answered. 
 
Santino Ceccotti, Esquire (Argued), Ross A. Flockerzie, Esquire, David C. 
Skoranski, Esquire, Office of the Public Defender, Wilmington, Delaware for 
Appellant. 
 
Elizabeth R. McFarlan, Esquire, John R. Williams, Esquire, Sean P. Lugg, Esquire 
(Argued), Delaware Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware for Appellee. 
 
Elena C. Norman, Esquire, Kathaleen St. J. McCormick, Esquire, Nicholas J. 
Rohrer, Esquire, Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor LLP, Wilmington, Delaware; 
Marc Bookman, Esquire, Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania, Amicus Curiae for the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation. 
 
Jeffrey S. Goddess, Esquire, Rosenthal, Monhait & Goddess, P.A., Wilmington, 
Delaware; G. Ben Cohen, Esquire, The Promise of Justice Initiative, New Orleans, 
Louisiana, Amicus Curiae for the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and 
Justice. 
 
Richard H. Morse, Esquire, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of 
Delaware, Wilmington, Delaware; Cassandra Stubbs, Esquire, Brian W. Stull, 
 
 
Esquire, American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project, Durham, 
North Carolina, Amicus Curiae for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation 
of Delaware and the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1 
 
PER CURIAM of Chief Justice Strine, Justice Holland, and Justice Seitz: 
The State has charged the Defendant, Benjamin Rauf with one count of First 
Degree Intentional Murder, one count of First Degree Felony Murder, Possession 
of a Firearm During those Felonies, and First Degree Robbery.  The State has 
expressed its intention to seek the death penalty if Rauf is convicted on either of 
the First Degree Murder counts.  On January 12, 2016, the United States Supreme 
Court held in Hurst v. Florida that Florida‘s capital sentencing scheme was 
unconstitutional because ―[t]he Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to 
find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death.‖1  On January 25, 2016, the 
Superior Court certified five questions of law to this Court for disposition in 
accordance with Supreme Court Rule 41.  On January 28, 2016, this Court 
accepted revised versions of the questions certified by the Superior Court and 
designated Rauf as the appellant and the State as the appellee.2 
In this case, we are asked to address important questions regarding the 
constitutionality of our state‘s death penalty statute.  The Superior Court believed 
that Hurst reflected an evolution of the law that raised serious questions about the 
continuing validity of Delaware‘s death penalty statute.  Specifically, Hurst 
prompted the question of whether our death penalty statute sufficiently respects a 
defendant‘s Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. 
                                                 
1 136 S. Ct. 616, 619 (2016). 
2 Rauf v. State, No. 39, 2016 (Del. Jan. 28, 2016) (ORDER). 
2 
 
Because answering the certified questions requires us to interpret not simply 
the Sixth Amendment itself, but the complex body of case law interpreting it, we 
have a diversity of views on exactly why the answers to the questions are what we 
have found them to be.  But that diversity of views is outweighed by the majority‘s 
collective view that Delaware‘s current death penalty statute violates the Sixth 
Amendment role of the jury as set forth in Hurst.  We also have a shared belief that 
the importance of the subject to our state and our fellow citizens, reflected in the 
excellent briefs and arguments of the parties, makes it useful for all the Justices to 
bring our various perspectives to bear on these difficult questions. 
For the sake of clarity, we set forth the five questions asked and the succinct 
answers to them. 
Question One 
 
Under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, may a 
sentencing judge in a capital jury proceeding, independent of the jury, find the 
existence of ―any aggravating circumstance,‖ statutory or non-statutory, that has 
been alleged by the State for weighing in the selection phase of a capital 
sentencing proceeding? 
3 
 
 
No.  Because Delaware‘s capital sentencing scheme allows the judge to do 
this,3 it is unconstitutional. 
Question Two 
 
If the finding of the existence of ―any aggravating circumstance,‖ statutory 
or non-statutory, that has been alleged by the State for weighing in the selection 
phase of a capital sentencing proceeding must be made by a jury, must the jury 
make the finding unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt to comport with 
federal constitutional standards? 
Yes.  The jury must make the finding unanimously and beyond a reasonable 
doubt.  Because the Delaware death penalty statute does not require juror 
unanimity,4 it is unconstitutional.   
 
                                                 
3 See 11 Del. C. § 4209(d)(1) (―If a jury has been impaneled and if the existence of at least 1 
statutory aggravating circumstance as enumerated in subsection (e) of this section has been 
found beyond a reasonable doubt by the jury, the Court, after considering the findings and 
recommendation of the jury and without hearing or reviewing any additional evidence, shall 
impose a sentence of death if the Court finds by a preponderance of the evidence . . . that the 
aggravating circumstances found by the Court to exist outweigh the mitigating circumstances 
found by the Court to exist.  The jury‘s recommendation concerning whether the aggravating 
circumstances found to exist outweigh the mitigating circumstances found to exist shall be given 
such consideration as deemed appropriate by the Court in light of the particular circumstances or 
details of the commission of the offense and the character and propensities of the offender as 
found to exist by the Court.  The jury‘s recommendation shall not be binding upon the Court.‖). 
4 See § 4209(c)(3)(b)(2) (―The jury shall report to the Court by the number of the affirmative and 
negative votes its recommendation on the question as to whether, by a preponderance of the 
evidence, after weighing all relevant evidence in aggravation or mitigation which bear upon the 
particular circumstances or details of the commission of the offense and the character and 
propensities of the offender, the aggravating circumstances found to exist outweigh the 
mitigating circumstances found to exist.‖). 
4 
 
Question Three 
Does the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution require a jury, 
not a sentencing judge, to find that the aggravating circumstances found to exist 
outweigh the mitigating circumstances found to exist because, under 11 Del. C. 
§ 4209, this is the critical finding upon which the sentencing judge ―shall impose a 
sentence of death‖? 
Yes.  Because Delaware‘s death penalty statute does not require the jury to 
perform this function,5 it is unconstitutional.  
Question Four 
If the finding that the aggravating circumstances found to exist outweigh the 
mitigating circumstances found to exist must be made by a jury, must the jury 
make that finding unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt to comport with 
federal constitutional standards? 
Yes.  We answer question four in the identical manner in which we have 
answered question two. 
Question Five 
If any procedure in 11 Del. C. § 4209‘s capital sentencing scheme does not 
comport with federal constitutional standards, can the provision for such be 
                                                 
5 See supra note 3. 
5 
 
severed from the remainder of 11 Del. C. § 4209, and the Court proceed with 
instructions to the jury that comport with federal constitutional standards?  
No.  Because the respective roles of the judge and jury are so complicated 
under § 4209, we are unable to discern a method by which to parse the statute so as 
to preserve it.  Because we see no way to sever § 4209, the decision whether to 
reinstate the death penalty—if our ruling ultimately becomes final—and under 
what procedures, should be left to the General Assembly. 
Summary 
This Court‘s prior cases on the constitutionality of Delaware‘s capital 
sentencing scheme are hereby overruled to the extent they are inconsistent with the 
answers in this opinion.  Having answered the certified questions, the Clerk is 
directed to transmit the opinions in this matter to the Superior Court.
1 
 
STRINE, Chief Justice, concurring in the Majority per curiam, with whom Justice 
HOLLAND and Justice SEITZ join: 
I. 
 
 
I join with a majority of my colleagues in concluding that Delaware‘s 
current death penalty statute conflicts with the Sixth Amendment of the United 
States Constitution.  The importance and complexity of the subject before us is 
illustrated by the somewhat different ways that each of us approach how the 
questions put to us should be answered and why they should be answered ―yes,‖ 
―no,‖ or not answered in part.  I agree with the succinct answers given to the five 
certified questions before us in the Majority‘s per curiam opinion, in which I 
happily and fully join.  The questions posed involve the application of a 
fundamental constitutional right that is easy to state—the right to a trial by a jury—
but that has been the subject of complex judicial explication during the past 
forty-four years since Furman v. Georgia1 made the administration of the death 
penalty a constant subject of federal constitutional rulings.  Given these decisions 
and the compelling importance of the subjects we now must address, I therefore 
burden the interested reader with an explanation of how I reached the answers I 
did.  The core of my reasoning, however, is as follows. 
Distilled to their essence, the most critical of questions before us ask 
whether the Sixth Amendment requires a jury, rather than a judge, to make all of 
                                                 
1 408 U.S. 238 (1972). 
2 
 
the factual findings in capital sentencing—including balancing those factors for 
itself in assessing whether death is the appropriate punishment—and, if so, whether 
the jury must make such findings unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt.  
Although I acknowledge that the meaning of Hurst v. Florida2 is contestable, it 
states that ―[t]he Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact 
necessary to impose a sentence of death.‖3  A combination of settled U.S. Supreme 
Court cases makes it impossible for a state to enact a statute under which a 
defendant must receive the death penalty if he is convicted.  Rather, even if a jury 
unanimously finds that a defendant is guilty of a crime that is punishable by 
death—by for example, finding that a defendant has committed a particular type of 
murder for which the legislature has said death is a possible penalty—additional 
findings must be made.  To sentence a defendant to death, the sentencing authority 
must consider all relevant factors bearing on whether the defendant should live or 
die, weigh those factors rationally against each other, and make an ultimate 
determination of whether the defendant should die or receive a comparatively more 
merciful sentence, typically life in prison.  The option for the sentencing authority 
to give a prison sentence, rather than a death sentence, must always exist.  After 
consideration of these factors and a determination that the balance of the relevant 
                                                 
2 136 S. Ct. 616 (2016). 
3 Id. at 619. 
3 
 
factors weighs in favor of a death sentence, the defendant cannot receive a death 
sentence. 
For these reasons, if the core reasoning of Hurst is that a jury, rather than a 
judge must make all the factual findings ―necessary‖ for a defendant to receive a 
death sentence,4 then Delaware‘s statute cannot stand.  Because our General 
Assembly has acted with alacrity to address the mandates of the U.S. Supreme 
Court, our statute necessarily mandates a fact-intensive inquiry at the ultimate 
stage of sentencing, in which the factors that aggravate toward a death sentence 
and mitigate against it are considered and weighed.  This application of the 
sentencing authority‘s judgment, conscience, and experience to the facts of record 
is what drives the ultimate decision whether the defendant should live or die.  
Without that exercise, no defendant can receive a death sentence consistent with 
the principles established by U.S. Supreme Court cases pre-dating Hurst.   
I recognize that this reading of Hurst is contestable, and that Hurst can be 
read as simply reiterating that any factual finding that makes a defendant eligible to 
receive the death penalty must be made by the jury.  Under that approach, once a 
jury has done all that is statutorily required to make death a permissible 
punishment, the jury‘s constitutionally required role goes away entirely and the use 
of a jury at all is optional.  Past case law, whose reasoning is in sharp tension with 
                                                 
4 Id. at 624. 
4 
 
the central reasoning of Hurst and its predecessors such as Apprendi v. New 
Jersey,5 embraces this narrow approach.   
For myself, however, I find it impossible to embrace a reading of Hurst that 
judicially draws a limit to the right to a jury in the death penalty context to having 
the jury make only the determinations necessary to make the defendant eligible to 
be sentenced to death by someone else, rather than to make the determinations 
itself that must be made if the defendant is in fact to receive a death sentence.  I am 
unable to discern in the Sixth Amendment any dividing line between the decision 
that someone is eligible for death and the decision that he should in fact die.  The 
post-Furman jurisprudence has created a regime governing death penalty cases that 
is intricate in design and often in tension with itself.  Candor requires an 
acknowledgment that that jurisprudence, although no doubt well-intended, has 
helped impel a reduction in the historical role of American juries in the death 
sentencing process in a small number of states, including our own. 
At the beginning of our Republic and throughout most of its history, 
defendants did not go to the gallows unless juries said they should.  And the role of 
the jury was seen as especially important when a defendant‘s life was in the 
balance, because it made sure that a defendant would suffer the ultimate 
punishment only if twelve members of the community deliberated together and 
                                                 
5 530 U.S. 466 (2000). 
5 
 
unanimously concluded that should be so.  To me, Hurst and its predecessors 
surface a reality that had been somewhat obscured in the development of the law in 
the decades since Furman, which is that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury is 
most important and fundamental when the issue is whether a defendant should live 
or die.  As the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized, death is different.  The 
proposition that any defendant should go to his death without a jury of his peers 
deciding that should happen would have been alien to the Founders, and starkly out 
of keeping with predominant American practices as of the time of Furman itself.  
The cost of useful precedent mandating that each defendant who commits a capital 
offense must also be accorded a rational sentencing proceeding that must include a 
careful consideration of those factors weighing in favor of mercy does not have to 
include depriving the defendant of the fundamental protection of a jury having to 
make the final judgment about his fate.  If the right to a jury means anything, it 
means the right to have a jury drawn from the community and acting as a proxy for 
its diverse views and mores, rather than one judge, make the awful decision 
whether the defendant should live or die.   
I therefore give Hurst its plain meaning and concur in the per curiam 
opinion‘s answers to the questions before us.  Under our statute that faithfully 
respects the requirement to consider all relevant sentencing factors and allow a 
death penalty only after those factors are weighed and the option for mercy is 
6 
 
considered, findings beyond the eligibility stage are necessary if a defendant is to 
receive a death sentence.  Thus, our statute cannot stand.  And to put my opinion in 
more basic terms, I embrace the notion that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury 
extends to all phases of a death penalty case, and specifically to the ultimate 
sentencing determination of whether a defendant should live or die.  Although 
states may give judges a role in tempering the harshness of a jury or in ensuring 
proportionality, they may not execute a defendant unless a jury has unanimously 
recommended that the defendant should suffer that fate. 
I also note that this same result can be reached by a more oblique and 
alternative route, which is holding that the practice of executing a defendant 
without the prior unanimous vote of a jury is so out of keeping with our history as 
to render the resulting punishment cruel and unusual.  The jury‘s historical role as 
an important safeguard against overreaching in this most critical of contexts was 
recognized at the founding, and prevails in most states today, making our own state 
one of the few outliers.  Hurst recognizes the centrality of the jury‘s historic role, 
and my opinion gives effect to that recognition. 
Consistent with this reasoning, I also conclude that the Delaware death 
penalty statute is inconsistent with the Sixth Amendment to the extent that it does 
not require a unanimous jury to make the key discretionary findings necessary to 
impose a death sentence by employing a beyond a reasonable doubt standard.  
7 
 
From the inception of our Republic, the unanimity requirement and the beyond a 
reasonable doubt standard have been integral to the jury‘s role in ensuring that no 
defendant should suffer death unless a cross section of the community 
unanimously determines that should be the case, under a standard that requires 
them to have a high degree of confidence that execution is the just result. 
II. 
 
To explain how I address the certified questions and the U.S. Supreme Court 
cases that occasion the certified questions before us, it is critical to understand, at 
least in rough outline, how we as a nation and state got to where we are in the 
administration of the death penalty, and how different things look from when our 
nation was founded.  By necessity, my recitation of this process is truncated, 
involves some simplification of a very complicated subject, and is compromised by 
the reality that I am a judge, and do not claim to be a historian.  That said, I am 
aided by the many scholars and lay commentators who have lucidly outlined the 
basic directional facts.6 
                                                 
6 See, e.g., John G. Douglass, Confronting Death: Sixth Amendment Rights at Capital 
Sentencing, 105 COLUM. L. REV. 1967 (2005); Nancy Gertner, A Short History of American 
Sentencing: Too Little Law, Too Much Law, or Just Right, 100 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 691 
(2010); Morris B. Hoffman, The Case for Jury Sentencing, 52 DUKE L.J. 951 (2003); Erik 
Lillquist, The Puzzling Return of Jury Sentencing: Misgivings About Apprendi, 82 N.C. L. REV. 
621 (2004). 
8 
 
At the beginning of our Republic, prisons of the kind we now have, where 
many defendants spend lengthy periods of their lives, were unknown.7  Instead, 
nearly all felonies carried mandatory death sentences,8 as was traditional in 
England—the primary example upon which our criminal justice system was built.9  
Because of greater American antipathy toward the death penalty, however, 
American criminal statutes had already begun to narrow the long list of crimes for 
which death was the mandatory sentence.10  For example, in the 1790s, 
Pennsylvania became the first state ―to alleviate the undue severity of the law by 
confining the mandatory death penalty to ‗murder of the first degree,‘‖11 a trend 
that would gain momentum.12   
                                                 
7 See United States v. Grayson, 438 U.S. 41, 45 (1978), superseded by statute, Sentencing 
Reform Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. § 3551 et seq., 28 U.S.C. §§ 991–998, as recognized in Barber v. 
Thomas, 560 U.S. 474 (2010); Lillquist, supra note 6, at 641–43. 
8 See Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 289 (1976); EVAN J. MANDERY, CAPITAL 
PUNISHMENT IN AMERICA: A BALANCED EXAMINATION xxi (2d ed. 2012). 
9 See Douglass, supra note 6, at 1977–78. 
10 See Woodson, 428 U.S. at 289; John W. Poulos, The Supreme Court, Capital Punishment and 
the Substantive Criminal Law: The Rise and Fall of Mandatory Capital Punishment, 28 ARIZ. L. 
REV. 143, 200 (1986). 
11 Woodson, 428 U.S. at 290; see also HUGO ADAM BEDAU, THE DEATH PENALTY IN AMERICA: 
CURRENT CONTROVERSIES 4 (1997). 
12 See BEDAU, supra note 11, at 4–5 (―In rapid order most states followed Pennsylvania‘s lead, so 
that today every American jurisdiction that authorizes the death penalty for murder does so by 
limiting it to those convicted of murder in the first degree . . . .‖); see also RAYMOND TAYLOR 
BYE, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 5–6 (1919); 6 WAYNE R. LAFAVE, ET AL., 
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE § 26.1(b), at 670–71 (3d ed. 2007). 
9 
 
From the beginning of our nation‘s history, the jury‘s role as the sentencer in 
capital cases ―was unquestioned.‖13  This was true in Delaware, where juries made 
the life or death decision at the beginning of our history.14  And, without any 
exception I have been able to identify, no defendant was put to death in the early 
stages of our nation‘s history without a jury making all the necessary 
determinations required.15  Of course, it is a bit of a misnomer to say that juries 
―sentenced‖ defendants to death.  Capital trials were not bifurcated, and ―[t]he 
question of guilt and the question of death both were decided in a single jury 
verdict at the end of a single proceeding conducted as an adversarial trial.‖16  But, 
it would be even more inaccurate to say that the jury did not have an important role 
in exercising its discretion and conscience in a manner that determined whether the 
defendant should live or die.   
The starkest way in which juries did this was by acquitting a defendant who 
was obviously guilty.17  By this crude action of nullification, a jury could exercise 
                                                 
13 Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639, 710–11 (1990) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (quoting Welsh S. 
White, Fact-Finding and the Death Penalty: The Scope of a Defendant’s Right to Jury Trial, 65 
NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1, 10–11 (1989)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Ronald F. 
Wright, Rules for Sentencing Revolutions, 108 YALE L.J. 1355, 1373 (1999). 
14 See, e.g., State v. Baynard, 1 Del. Cas. 662 (O. & T. 1794); State v. Donovan, 1 Del. Cas. 168 
(O. & T. 1798); see also State v. Jeandell, 5 Del. 475, 483 (Gen. Sess. 1854). 
15 See Lillquist, supra note 6, at 628–29; Nancy J. King, The Origins of Felony Jury Sentencing 
in the United States, 78 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 937 (2003). 
16 Douglass, supra note 6, at 1972. 
17 See Woodson, 428 U.S. at 293; see also Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 360 (1976) 
(White, J., dissenting); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 298 (1972) (Brennan, J., concurring); 
JEFFREY B. ABRAMSON, WE, THE JURY: THE JURY SYSTEM AND THE IDEAL OF DEMOCRACY 217 
(1994); VALERIE P. HANS & NEIL VIDMAR, JUDGING THE JURY 149–58 (1986); Jenia Iontcheva, 
10 
 
its conscience by refusing to convict a guilty defendant precisely because the jury 
thought that death was too harsh a punishment for the crime.  Rather than this 
practice of nullification leading to hostility to juries by our founding generation, it 
was seen as an example of the bedrock importance of the jury in securing the 
liberties of our citizens.18  John Adams, for example, wrote:  ―It is not only [the 
juror‘s] right, but his duty . . . to find the verdict according to his own best 
understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the 
direction of the court.‖19 
The practice of nullification also exposed an important community 
viewpoint that statute writers began to recognize, which is that crimes could be 
serious but yet not be considered so injurious to society as to always warrant a 
death sentence.  Therefore, as Pennsylvania had done, states increasingly narrowed 
the felonies for which death was a mandatory sentence.20  Degrees of murder were 
in large measure introduced to allow juries to convict a defendant of a degree of 
homicide while not exposing the defendant to death.  And over time, jury 
                                                                                                                                                             
Jury Sentencing as Democratic Practice, 89 VA. L. REV. 311, 321–22 (2003); see also Rachel E. 
Barkow, Recharging the Jury: The Criminal Jury’s Constitutional Role in an Era of Mandatory 
Sentencing, 152 U. PA. L. REV. 33, 79 (2003); Thomas A. Green, The Jury and the English Law 
of Homicide 1200–1600, 74 MICH. L. REV. 413, 430–31 (1976). 
18 See CLAY S. CONRAD, JURY NULLIFICATION: THE EVOLUTION OF A DOCTRINE 47–48 (2014); 
White, supra note 13, at 30–31 (―[I]t became accepted that in homicide cases the jury would 
exercise its nullification power when it believed that the defendants—although they might be 
technically guilty of the capital offense—did not deserve to die.  Thus, in this context, the jury‘s 
fact-finding power has historically been used to temper the application of capital punishment so 
that it will mirror the community‘s perception as to when that punishment is appropriate.‖). 
19 C.F. ADAMS, THE WORKS OF JOHN ADAMS 255 (1865). 
20 See supra note 12 and accompanying text. 
11 
 
discretion over sentencing was more candidly introduced, as several states moved 
to statutory regimes under which even a defendant convicted of the most serious of 
crimes—such as intentional murder—could nonetheless be given a sentence other 
than death.  In the 1830s and 40s, the first states abandoned mandatory death 
sentences even in first degree murder cases and granted juries discretion in capital 
sentencing.21  Our own General Assembly divided murder into two degrees in 
1852, with first degree murder carrying a mandatory death sentence and second 
degree murder carrying various harsh, non-capital sentences.22  This gave the jury 
an option to convict, but to exempt the defendant from death if its sense of mercy 
moved in that direction.23 
About half of the states adopted discretionary statutes by 1900, and even 
more states followed soon after.24  In 1899, the U.S. Supreme Court itself 
well-summarized some of the key developments: 
The hardship of punishing with death every crime coming within the 
definition of murder at common law, and the reluctance of jurors to 
concur in a capital conviction, have induced American legislatures, in 
modern times, to allow some cases of murder to be punished by 
imprisonment, instead of by death.  That end has been generally 
attained in one of two ways:  First.  In some states and territories, 
statutes have been passed establishing degrees of the crime of murder, 
requiring the degree of murder to be found by the jury, and providing 
that the courts shall pass sentence of death in those cases only in 
                                                 
21 See Woodson, 428 U.S. at 291. 
22 See Del. C. ch. 127 §§ 1, 2 (1852). 
23 See State v. Reidell, 14 A. 550, 550 (Del. 1888). 
24 See Woodson, 428 U.S. at 291; BEDAU, supra note 11, at 5–6; BYE, supra note 12, at 7–8. 
12 
 
which the jury return a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, 
and sentence of imprisonment when the verdict is guilty of murder in 
the lesser degree. . . .  Second.  The difficulty of laying down exact 
and satisfactory definitions of degrees in the crime of murder, 
applicable to all possible circumstances, has led other legislatures to 
prefer the more simple and flexible rule of conferring upon the jury, in 
every case of murder, the right of deciding whether it shall be 
punished by death or by imprisonment.25 
 
Some exceptions to the jury tradition emerged, albeit in an unsavory context 
that actually underscores the importance of the right to a jury.  A few states, 
unhappy with the rights accorded to black citizens by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 
Amendments, cut back on unanimity requirements for juries, in order to mute the 
voice of newly eligible black jurors.26  But even with these exceptions, the overall 
picture was remarkably consistent:  Defendants received death sentences only 
                                                 
25 Winston v. United States, 172 U.S. 303, 310–12 (1899). 
26 E.g., Robert J. Smith & Bidish J. Sarma, How and Why Race Continues to Influence the 
Administration of Criminal Justice in Louisiana, 72 LA. L. REV. 361, 375–78 (2012). 
Regrettably, Delaware was among the many states that embarked on a century-long 
campaign of resistance to the rights granted to black people by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 
Amendments, including those related to juries.  In justifying the total absence of any black 
citizens in grand and petit jury pools as ―nowise remarkable,‖ Delaware‘s then-Chief Justice said 
that ―the great body of black men residing in this State are utterly unqualified by want of 
intelligence, experience or moral integrity to sit on juries.‖  Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370, 402 
(1880) (Waite, C.J., dissenting) (quoting the Delaware Supreme Court‘s opinion) (internal 
quotation marks omitted).  A divided U.S. Supreme Court held that this exclusion violated the 
Fourteenth Amendment, but dissenters embraced the rationale that categorical exclusion of black 
people from jury pools on the basis of their presumed unfitness to serve was constitutional.  See 
id. at 397–98 (Harlan, J.) (finding that Delaware‘s practice of restricting juries to ―free white 
male citizens, of the age of twenty-two years and upwards‖ was in violation of the Fourteenth 
Amendment); id. at 407–08 (Waite, C.J., dissenting) (―No one can truly affirm that women, the 
aged, and the resident foreigner, whether Caucasian or Mongolian, though excluded from acting 
as jurors, are not as equally protected by the laws of the State as those who are allowed or 
required to serve in that capacity.  To afford equality of protection to all persons by its laws does 
not require the State to permit all persons to participate equally in the administration of those 
laws, or to hold its offices, or to discharge the trusts of government.‖).   
13 
 
when the jury determined they should.  And that jury determination had to be 
unanimous.27 
One byproduct of the jury‘s more explicit role in exercising sentencing 
discretion over whether a defendant should live or die was the emergence of a 
greater judicial role in sentencing defendants convicted by juries of committing a 
crime for which death was not a possible sentence.  Early in our history, those few 
crimes that did not carry the death penalty had relatively short, if any, prison 
sentences attached to them.28  As mentioned, the term ―prison‖ was itself not the 
right word, as we did not have an institutionalized system for incarcerating 
defendants.29  In England and then in the early stages of our Republic, there was a 
tradition of sentencing by judges in non-capital, misdemeanor cases.30  As society 
determined through law that not all serious crimes should subject defendants to 
death and that there needed to be other serious sentencing options to fulfill 
objectives such as retribution and even loftier goals such as rehabilitation, 
                                                 
27 See Andres v. United States, 333 U.S. 740, 748 (1948) (―In criminal cases this requirement of 
unanimity extends to all issues—character or degree of the crime, guilt and punishment—which 
are left to the jury.‖); id. at 763 (Frankfurter, J., concurring) (―The fair significance to be drawn 
from State legislation and the practical construction given to it is that it places into the jury‘s 
hands the determination whether the sentence is to be death or life imprisonment, and, since that 
is the jury‘s responsibility, it is for them to decide whether death should or should not be the 
consequence of their finding that the accused is guilty of murder in the first degree.  Since the 
determination of the sentence is thus, in effect, a part of their verdict, there must be accord by the 
entire jury in reaching the full content of the verdict.‖). 
28 See JOEL SAMAHA, CRIMINAL PROCEDURE 475 (2011); Corinna Barrett Lain, Furman 
Fundamentals, 82 WASH. L. REV. 1, 23 (2007).  
29 See supra note 7 and accompanying text. 
30 See Wright, supra note 13, at 1374–75; King, supra note 15, at 985–86. 
14 
 
institutions such as so-called ―penitentiaries‖ where defendants could do penance 
for their misdeeds emerged.31  Consistent with the tradition that judges had often 
decided on the appropriate punishment when life or death was not the binary 
choice, judicial sentencing for non-capital offenses became more prevalent.32  And, 
when the question was not the stark one of life or death, but the more nuanced one 
of what number of years a defendant should spend in prison, judicial expertise was 
perhaps seen as valuable. 
Before fast-forwarding to the status of these trends in practice as of when 
Furman was decided in 1972, another important factor must be considered.  This 
evolution of practices emerged without intrusion by the federal Judiciary or the 
federal Constitution.  One cannot find U.S. Supreme Court cases addressing the 
constitutionality of the various state approaches to these issues.  That is because it 
was not until 1932 that the U.S. Supreme Court first began to apply the provisions 
in the Bill of Rights protecting criminal defendants to the states.33  And the wave of 
cases holding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the procedural 
protections of criminal defendants and that the states had to abide by those 
                                                 
31 See United States v. Moreland, 258 U.S. 433, 448 (1922); see also ARTHUR W. CAMPBELL, 
LAW OF SENTENCING § 1.2, at 6–9 (3d ed. 2004); Douglass, supra note 6, at 2018. 
32 See Hoffman, supra note 6, at 965; Lillquist, supra note 6, at 628–29. 
33 See Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 71 (1932). 
15 
 
protections to the same extent as the federal government rose in the era after World 
War II and crested in the 1960s.34 
Coincident with this wave was a general trend toward making the death 
penalty rarer in application.  Some states went so far as to abolish the death 
penalty.35  Delaware even did that for a brief period, from 1958 to 1961.36  
                                                 
34 See, e.g., In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 271–73 (1948) (incorporating the Sixth Amendment right 
to a public trial and to notice of accusations); Wolf  v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27–28, 33 (1949) 
(―[T]he security of one‘s privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police—which is at the core 
of the Fourth Amendment—is basic to a free society [and i]t is therefore implicit in ‗the concept 
of ordered liberty‘ and as such enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause.‖), 
overruled in part by Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961); Mapp, 367 U.S. at 655–56 (further 
incorporating the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule by holding that ―all evidence obtained by 
searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is . . . inadmissible in a state court‖); 
Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 667 (1962) (incorporating the Eighth Amendment 
protection against cruel and unusual punishment); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 342 
(1963) (incorporating the Sixth Amendment guarantee of counsel for indigent defendants in 
felony cases); Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 34 (1963) (confirming that the Fourth Amendment 
protection against unreasonable searches and seizures apply to the states); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 
U.S. 1, 10–11 (1964) (incorporating the Fifth Amendment protection against compelled 
self-incrimination); Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 110 (1964) (―[T]he standard for obtaining a 
search warrant is [] ‗the same under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.‘‖ (quoting Ker, 374 
U.S. at 33)), abrogated by Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 
403 (1965) (incorporating the Sixth Amendment right of an accused to confront prosecution 
witnesses); Parker v. Gladden, 385 U.S. 363, 364 (1966) (incorporating the Sixth Amendment 
right to trial by an impartial jury); Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213, 222–23 (1967) 
(incorporating the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial); Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 
19–20 (1967) (incorporating the Sixth Amendment right to have compulsory process for 
obtaining defense witnesses); Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149, 158 (1968) 
(incorporating the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury in all criminal cases, except for 
―petty‖ offenses); Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 796 (1969) (incorporating the Fifth 
Amendment protection against double jeopardy); see also Jerold H. Israel, Selective 
Incorporation: Revisited, 71 GEO. L.J. 253, 296 (1982) (―The decisions of the 1960‘s had 
selectively incorporated all but four of the Bill of Rights guarantees relating to the criminal 
justice process: public trial, notice of charges, prohibition of excessive bail, and prosecution by 
indictment.‖). 
35 See Woodson, 428 U.S. at 291. 
36 See State v. Dickerson, 298 A.2d 761, 764 n.6 (Del. 1972); Hugo Adam Bedau, The Death 
Penalty in America, 35 FED. PROBATION 32, 32 (1971); Valerie P. Hans et al., The Death 
Penalty: Should the Judge or the Jury Decide Who Dies, 12 J. EMPIRICAL L. STUD. 70, 73 
16 
 
Although Delaware then reenacted the death penalty, it did so only for first degree 
murder.  And the Delaware statute made a death sentence for first degree murder 
mandatory but with a safety valve involving the jury.  The jury could not only use 
the traditional means of convicting of a lesser degree of murder as a way of 
avoiding the imposition of a death sentence, but could convict of first degree 
murder and recommend mercy and a non-capital sentence to the judge37—a choice 
juries did not have in the early years of Delaware‘s death penalty.38  This mercy 
safety valve was first instituted in Delaware for murder cases in 1917.39  In giving 
juries discretion to exercise mercy, Delaware was consistent with the overall trends 
in states that retained the death penalty in the twentieth century.40  But, by allowing 
the sentencing judge to disregard that mercy recommendation and instead impose 
death, Delaware was nearly alone.41  ―By the end of World War I, all but eight 
States, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia either had adopted discretionary death 
penalty schemes or abolished the death penalty altogether.  By 1963, all of these 
                                                                                                                                                             
(2015); Glenn W. Samuelson, Why Was Capital Punishment Restored in Delaware?, 60 J. CRIM. 
L. & CRIMINOLOGY 148, 148 (1969). 
37 See 29 Del. C. ch. 266 (1917); see also State v. Thomas, 111 A. 538, 539 (Del. 1920); State v. 
Carey, 178 A. 877, 878 (Del. O. &. T. 1935). 
38 See Dickerson, 298 A.2d at 764 n.6. 
39 See id. 
40 See Woodson, 428 U.S. at 289; see also Sheri Lynn Johnson et al., The Delaware Death 
Penalty: An Empirical Study, 97 IOWA L. REV. 1925, 1929 (2012). 
41 See Andres, 333 U.S. at 758 (Frankfurter, J., concurring) (―In three States a jury‘s 
recommendation of life imprisonment is not binding on the trial court:  Delaware, New Mexico, 
and Utah.‖).  It appears that there was only one instance in which a trial judge imposed death 
when a jury recommended mercy, and that sentence was overturned on other grounds, depriving 
this Court of the chance to address whether that judicial override was proper.  See Jenkins v. 
State, 230 A.2d 262, 265 & n.1 (Del. 1967). 
17 
 
remaining jurisdictions had replaced their automatic death penalty statutes with 
discretionary jury sentencing.‖42   
Given the continued centrality of the jury in capital sentencing in the United 
States, it was perhaps mundane for the Supreme Court to say in Witherspoon v. 
Illinois43 in 1968 that capital juries ―express the conscience of the community on 
the ultimate question of life or death.‖44  After all, as of the time Witherspoon was 
decided, jury sentencing in capital cases was not only the norm, but was used in all 
but two states.45  By contrast, judicial sentencing for non-capital cases had become 
prevalent, with prison sentences the primary form of punishment for most serious 
crimes.  Importantly, it was only in this same time period that the Supreme Court 
held in Duncan v. Lousiana46 that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the 
Sixth Amendment‘s right to a jury trial.47 
As of that time, the U.S. Supreme Court had still not held that the 
Constitution placed any particular limits on states‘ imposition of the death penalty.  
                                                 
42 Woodson, 428 U.S. at 291–92; see also Andres, 333 U.S. at 759 (Frankfurter, J., concurring); 
Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae at 36, McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183 
(1971). 
43 391 U.S. 510 (1968). 
44 Id. at 519. 
45 See id. at 525–27 & nn. 2–8; Bryan A. Stevenson, The Ultimate Authority on the Ultimate 
Punishment, 54 ALA. L. REV. 1091, 1140 (2003); see also  Johnson v. Texas, 509 U.S. 350, 359 
(1993); Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 597–98 (1978); Stephen P. Garvey, ―As the Gentle Rain 
From Heaven‖: Mercy in Capital Sentencing, 81 CORNELL L. REV. 989, 996 (1996); Susan R. 
Klein & Jordan M. Steiker, The Search for Equality in Criminal Sentencing, 2002 SUP. CT. REV. 
223, 262–65; Lillquist, supra note 6, at 648; infra note 228 and accompanying text. 
46 391 U.S. 145. 
47 See id. at 149; see also Parker, 385 U.S. at 364. 
18 
 
Before then, ―the death penalty was widely authorized‖ and states were not 
required by any judicial mandate implementing the federal Constitution to narrow 
the class of defendants eligible for death or to otherwise ensure that the death 
penalty was not applied in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner.48  Consistent 
with the traditional lack of a federal role in these areas, the Supreme Court issued a 
decision in 1971 in McGautha v. California,49 holding that a state did not need to 
provide capital sentencing juries with any kind of guidance or list of considerations 
to use in making the life-or-death determination.  The Court explained why: 
In light of history, experience, and the present limitations of human 
knowledge, we find it quite impossible to say that committing to the 
untrammeled discretion of the jury the power to pronounce life or 
death in capital cases is offensive to anything in the Constitution.  The 
States are entitled to assume that jurors confronted with the truly 
awesome responsibility of decreeing death for a fellow human will act 
with due regard for the consequences of their decision and will 
consider a variety of factors, many of which will have been suggested 
by the evidence or by the arguments of defense counsel.50 
 
By the beginning of the 1970s, the death penalty was being more sparingly 
applied than at any previous time in our nation‘s history, and public support for the 
death penalty was relatively low.51  McGautha seemed to signal the Supreme 
Court‘s view that juries could, as a general matter, be trusted to exercise the 
                                                 
48 Stephen F. Smith, The Supreme Court and the Politics of Death, 94 VA. L. REV. 283, 287 
(2008); see also Lain, supra note 28, at 18. 
49 402 U.S. 183 (1971), overruled by Crampton v. Ohio, 408 U.S. 941 (1972). 
50 Id. at 207–08. 
51 See ANDREA D. LYON, THE DEATH PENALTY, WHAT‘S KEEPING IT ALIVE 7 (2014); Sam Kamin 
& Justin Marceau, Waking the Furman Giant, 48 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 981, 990 (2015); Lain, 
supra note 28, at 18–19. 
19 
 
awesome power historically entrusted to them of making the life or death decisions 
put to them without prescriptive federal judicial guideposts.  Likewise, McGautha 
seemed to signal that the Supreme Court would allow death penalty law to 
continue to evolve based on determinations by state legislatures.  But that, of 
course, did not turn out to be the case.   
III. 
 
The very next year, in 1972, Furman v. Georgia upset the traditions and 
destabilized the foundations on which state death penalty statutes stood, causing 
some states to respond with approaches that reduced the jury‘s role in the death 
penalty sentencing process.52  In Furman, the Supreme Court reviewed two 
Georgia Supreme Court decisions, which affirmed death sentences for a defendant 
convicted of murder and a defendant convicted of rape, and one Texas Supreme 
Court decision, which affirmed a death sentence for a defendant convicted of 
rape.53  In each of the death statutes at issue, ―the determination of whether the 
penalty should be death or a lighter punishment was left by the State to the 
discretion of the judge or of the jury.‖54  Because there was a jury trial in each of 
                                                 
52 See Lockett, 438 U.S. at 598; Smith, supra note 48, at 288–91; Kamin & Marceau, supra note 
51, at 986–87; James S. Liebman, Slow Dancing With Death: The Supreme Court and Capital 
Punishment, 1963–2006, 107 COLUM. L. REV. 1, 23 (2007). 
53 See Furman, 408 U.S. at 239. 
54 See id. at 240 (Douglas, J., concurring). 
20 
 
the three cases, under the Georgia and Texas statutes a jury ultimately sentenced 
each of the defendants to death.55 
The defendants in Furman argued that the Georgia and Texas statutes 
contained ―unbridled discretion [that] made it impossible to rationally distinguish 
between those who would live and those who would die.‖56  ―Certiorari was 
granted limited to the following question:  ‗Does the imposition and carrying out of 
the death penalty in (these cases) constitute cruel and unusual punishment in 
violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?‘‖57  The splintered Court 
held that it did. 
Although the Court struck down death sentences in the cases on appeal, it 
stopped short of holding the death penalty unconstitutional as a categorical matter.  
In a one-paragraph per curiam opinion, the Furman majority held ―that the 
imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitute cruel and 
unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.‖58  
But, like the situation we find ourselves in today, the Court‘s majority could not 
agree on exactly why that was so.59  Three Justices, each authoring a separate 
concurring opinion, voted to strike down the death sentences because the death 
                                                 
55 See id.; Bryan A. Stevenson, The Politics of Fear and Death: Successive Problems in Capital 
Federal Habeas Corpus Cases, 77 N.Y.U. L. REV. 699, 716 n.80 (2002). 
56 Lain, supra note 28, at 16–17. 
57 Furman, 408 U.S. at 239. 
58 Id. at 239–40 (emphasis added). 
59 See Lain, supra note 28, at 10–11. 
21 
 
penalty statutes in question did not provide sufficient protections to ensure that the 
death penalty was not imposed in an arbitrary and capricious manner, and as a 
result, were applied in a racially discriminatory manner.60  As one respected 
treatise explains it, the Furman plurality ―held that the death penalty was so 
arbitrarily and randomly imposed that it violated the Eighth Amendment.‖61  The 
views of the two other Justices who voted to overturn the convictions is easier to 
state:  They viewed any imposition of the death penalty to any defendant to be 
cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore as unconstitutional under the Eighth 
and Fourteenth Amendments.62 
Despite the lack of consensus, Furman clarified that a capital sentencing 
scheme must meet a basic hurdle to avoid violating the Eighth Amendment:  
―Furman mandates that where discretion is afforded a sentencing body on a matter 
so grave as the determination of whether a human life should be taken or spared, 
that discretion must be suitably directed and limited so as to minimize the risk of 
wholly arbitrary and capricious action.‖63  In other words, what Furman 
                                                 
60 See Furman, 408 U.S. at 256–57 (Douglas, J., concurring); id. at 308, 310 (Stewart, J., 
concurring); id. at 310–11, 313  (White, J., concurring). 
61 6 LAFAVE, ET AL., supra note 12, § 26.1(b), at 671. 
62 See Furman, 408 U.S. at 305 (Brennan, J., concurring); id. at 369 (Marshall, J., concurring). 
63 Gregg, 428 U.S. at 189; see also Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 876–77 (1983); Douglass, 
supra note 6, at 1994. 
22 
 
established is that the sentencer in a capital case cannot have ―unbridled 
discretion‖ in sentencing a defendant.64   
IV. 
 
Given that the common practice in the states before Furman was to give to 
the jury the discretion to impose a life or death sentence, Furman had the practical 
effect of ―str[iking] down virtually every death penalty law nationwide,‖65 and 
creating a de facto moratorium on executions.66  In fact, ―[w]hen the Supreme 
Court decided Furman in 1972, almost everyone—including the Justices 
themselves—believed that America had seen its last execution.‖67  But after 
Furman, the prior trends in the states reversed course.  Instead of reacting to 
Furman by abolishing death penalty statutes as most people had expected, states 
responded by passing new death penalty statutes that they thought would satisfy 
the requirements Furman established.68  Indeed, after Furman defendants again 
began being given death sentences at very high rates.69   
                                                 
64 Woodson, 428 U.S. at 285 (emphasis added); see also Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 
110–12 (1982); Douglass, supra note 6, at 1995. 
65 Smith, supra note 48, at 288; FRANKLIN E. ZIMRING & GORDON HAWKINS, CAPITAL 
PUNISHMENT AND THE AMERICAN AGENDA 41 (1986); Liebman, supra note 52, at 23. 
66 See Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 88 (2008) (Scalia, J., concurring); Lain, supra note 28, at 19. 
67 Lain, supra note 28, at 45; see also Furman, 408 U.S. at 313 (White, J., concurring); LEE 
EPSTEIN & JOSEPH F. KOBYLKA, THE SUPREME COURT AND LEGAL CHANGE: ABORTION AND THE 
DEATH PENALTY 81 (1992); Arthur J. Goldberg, The Death Penalty and the Supreme Court, 15 
ARIZ. L. REV. 355, 367 (1973). 
68 See Callins v. Collins, 510 U.S. 1127, 1144 (1994) (Scalia, J., concurring). 
69 See Lain, supra note 28, at 47–49; Smith, supra note 48, at 290; ZIMRING & HAWKINS, supra 
note 65, at 39. 
23 
 
To avoid arbitrariness and comply with the Eighth Amendment as 
interpreted in Furman, states experimented.  Some states changed their capital 
sentencing schemes after Furman to allow the trial judge to make the ultimate 
life-or-death decision.70  Many other states enacted mandatory statutes, which 
outlined a specific category of crimes for which the death penalty was the required 
sentence.71  The rationale behind these statutes was an obvious response to 
Furman‘s concern about arbitrariness and discrimination:  If every defendant who 
committed a capital offense was subject to death, there would be no discrimination 
or arbitrariness in the sentencing process.  Conviction would invariably equal 
death.72 
Still other states took a different approach.  To rationally narrow the crimes 
for which death was a possibility, states began to adopt more specific statutes 
under which a defendant would be eligible for a death sentence only if he was 
found to have committed, for example, not just a homicide, but a type of homicide 
that the statute identified as especially egregious and deserving of harsh 
punishment.73  Thus, the post-Furman capital sentencing statutes often included 
                                                 
70 See Stephen Gillers, Deciding Who Dies, 129 U. PA. L. REV. 1, 17–18, 43 (1980) (eight states 
switched from jury sentencing to judge sentencing after Furman). 
71 See Lain, supra note 28, at 56–57. 
72 See Poulos, supra note 10, at 186. 
73 See Liebman, supra note 52, at 10. 
24 
 
lists of aggravating factors intended to narrow the scope of death eligible crimes 
and defendants.74 
V. 
 
By the bicentennial, this period of legislative reaction had resulted in cases 
ripe for Supreme Court consideration.  On July 2, 1976, the Supreme Court 
decided four cases that addressed the constitutional adequacy of several states‘ 
attempts to comply with Furman.  The most famous of these so-called ―July 2nd 
cases‖ was, of course, Gregg v. Georgia.75  At issue in Gregg was the 
constitutionality of Georgia‘s capital sentencing scheme that was structurally 
similar to that which had been struck down in Furman,76 but which attempted to 
address Furman‘s requirements by ―provid[ing] some sort of criteria to guide the 
jury‘s discretion in determining whether to impose death.‖77  The Supreme Court 
upheld Georgia‘s new capital sentencing scheme and clarified that its holding in 
Furman was limited to the imposition of the death penalty in the specific Georgia 
and Texas cases at issue in Furman under the then-existing statutes.78  In keeping 
with what it then viewed as the popular opinion in the United States,79 the Court 
held in Gregg ―that the punishment of death does not invariably violate the 
                                                 
74 See id.; Douglass, supra note 6, at 1994. 
75 428 U.S. 153 (1976). 
76 See Liebman, supra note 52, at 28. 
77 Lain, supra note 28, at 55 n.317. 
78 See Gregg, 428 U.S. at 168–69. 
79 See id. 179. 
25 
 
Constitution,‖ and specifically the Eighth Amendment.80  And, the Court held that 
capital punishment is not a cruel and unusual punishment for the crime of murder, 
but is ―an extreme sanction, suitable to the most extreme of crimes.‖81 
Of equal importance to Gregg‘s validation of state approaches involving 
what some have called ―guided discretion‖ was the Supreme Court‘s rejection of 
mandatory statutes as an answer to its concerns over capricious imposition of the 
death penalty.  In Woodson v. North Carolina,82  the Court reviewed the death 
sentences of four defendants who had been convicted of first degree murder 
resulting from their participation in an armed robbery.  North Carolina was one of 
the states that amended their capital sentencing schemes after Furman to make 
death the mandatory sentence for eligible crimes.  After ―sketching the history of 
mandatory death penalty statutes in the United States,‖ the Court noted that its 
findings ―reveal[] that the practice of sentencing to death all persons convicted of a 
particular offense has been rejected as unduly harsh and unworkably rigid.‖83  And, 
the Court observed, ―a mandatory death penalty statute . . . does not fulfill 
Furman‘s basic requirement by replacing arbitrary and wanton jury discretion with 
                                                 
80 Id. at 169; see also Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 268 (1976). 
81 Gregg, 428 U.S. at 187; see also Kansas v. Marsh, 548 U.S. 163, 173–74 (2006). 
82 428 U.S. 280. 
83 Id. at 289, 293; see also Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 335–36 (1976) (same). 
26 
 
objective standards to guide, regularize, and make rationally reviewable the 
process for imposing a sentence of death.‖84 
Woodson then observed that an additional ―constitutional shortcoming of the 
North Carolina statute is its failure to allow the particularized consideration of 
relevant aspects of the character and record of each convicted defendant before the 
imposition upon him of a sentence of death.‖85  The Court explained: 
[I]n capital cases the fundamental respect for humanity underlying the 
Eighth Amendment requires consideration of the character and record 
of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular 
offense as a constitutionally indispensable part of the process of 
inflicting the penalty of death.  This conclusion rests squarely on the 
predicate that the penalty of death is qualitatively different from a 
sentence of imprisonment, however long.  Death, in its finality, differs 
more from life imprisonment than a 100-year prison term differs from 
one of only a year or two.  Because of that qualitative difference, there 
is a corresponding difference in the need for reliability in the 
determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific 
case.86 
 
After Woodson, it was widely believed that states could not specify by 
statute a list of crimes for which conviction would automatically result in a death 
sentence.  Although the Supreme Court had supposedly left open that the murder 
of a prison guard by a prisoner might be an exception87—a possibility the Supreme 
                                                 
84 Id. at 303. 
85 Id. 
86 Id. at 304–05. 
87 See id. at 287 n.7; id. at 292 n.25. 
27 
 
Court later expressly rejected in 198788—commentators viewed the mandatory 
approach as having been soundly rejected.89   
And in Jurek v. Texas,90 the Supreme Court reviewed the conviction of a 
Texas man sentenced to death for murder.  The Texas statute at issue required the 
sentencing jury to consider the aggravating factors during sentencing, but did not 
allow consideration of mitigating factors.  The Supreme Court invalidated that 
statute, holding that ―in order to meet the requirement of the Eighth and Fourteenth 
Amendments, a capital-sentencing system must allow the sentencing authority to 
consider mitigating circumstances.‖91  ―A jury,‖ the Court reasoned, ―must be 
allowed to consider on the basis of all relevant evidence not only why a death 
sentence should be imposed, but also why it should not be imposed.‖92 
In the final July 2nd case, the Supreme Court upheld the capital sentencing 
schemes that were amended after Furman to switch from jury to judge sentencing 
in capital cases from an Eighth Amendment challenge.  In Proffitt v. Florida,93  the 
Court recognized ―that jury sentencing in a capital case can perform an important 
societal function,‖ but nevertheless explained that the Court had ―never suggested 
                                                 
88 See Sumner v. Shuman, 483 U.S. 66, 77–78 (1987). 
89 See, e.g., Margaret Jane Radin, The Jurisprudence of Death: Evolving Standards for the Cruel 
and Unusual Punishments Clause, 126 U. PA. L. REV. 989, 999 (1978); Death Penalty, 90 HARV. 
L. REV. 63, 64, 69 (1976). 
90 428 U.S. 262. 
91 Id. at 271; see also Woodson, 428 U.S. at 303–04; Lockett, 438 U.S. at 605; Douglass, supra 
note 6, at 1994–95. 
92 Jurek, 428 U.S. at 271. 
93 428 U.S. 242 (1976). 
28 
 
that jury sentencing is constitutionally required.‖94  Of course, Proffitt was decided 
only in 1976, less than a decade after the Court had first held that the Sixth 
Amendment right to a jury applied against the states.95  And Proffitt never 
examined that there had not been much basis as of 1976 to ponder the question of 
whether a defendant had a right to have a jury make the final decision as to death, 
given the overwhelming historical prevalence of jury sentencing authority in that 
most sensitive of realms.  
What followed Gregg and the other July 2nd cases was another wave of new 
death penalty statutes that confirmed that Furman and its progeny had unsettled 
tradition.96  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the complexity of the procedures necessary for 
states to implement the death penalty in a manner consistent with the Supreme 
Court‘s evolving case law raised new questions regarding the respective roles of 
judge and jury.97  One consequence of the Supreme Court‘s jurisprudence was 
clear, which is that it was no longer practicable for a capital defendant to be subject 
to a singular proceeding after which his guilt and punishment were determined 
simultaneously, because states could not establish a mandatory death sentence 
regime.98  And, states were required to take steps to limit the arbitrariness in the 
                                                 
94 Id. at 252. 
95 See supra note 47 and accompanying text. 
96 See Johnson v. Texas, 509 U.S. 350, 360 (1993). 
97 See Douglass, supra note 6, at 2024–25 (discussing this issue). 
98 See supra notes 82–89 and accompanying text. 
29 
 
application of the death penalty.99  Thus, ―all death-penalty states abandoned 
unitary trials in favor of bifurcated proceedings that separate the case into a ‗guilty‘ 
phase and a ‗penalty‘ phase.‖100  By and large, this meant that states had to set up a 
process for the consideration of all relevant factors bearing on whether a particular 
defendant deserved the death penalty, including mitigating factors relevant only to 
sentencing and not to guilt or innocence.  Likewise, it meant having a process to 
try to ensure proportionality in the imposition of the death penalty, by making sure 
that it was not imposed for crimes that were not sufficiently egregious.101  This 
proportionality review necessarily required a consideration of not just the case at 
hand, but of other similar cases, and was more fitting for judicial rather than jury 
performance.102 
In reaction to the very cases that gave capital defendants constitutional 
protections against arbitrary and capricious imposition of the death penalty, some 
states adopted statutes that left them exposed to a new fate that was historically 
unusual in American history—the possibility of being executed without a jury 
unanimously saying that should happen.  That is, as states adopted statutes that 
provided specific processes to meet Furman‘s core concerns, some of them 
                                                 
99 See supra notes 63–64 and accompanying text. 
100 Douglass, supra note 6, at 1995; see also id. at 2020. 
101 See Gregg, 428 U.S. at 173; Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 815 (1982) (same); Weeks v. 
State, 653 A.2d 266, 270 (Del. 1995). 
102 See, e.g., Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 596 (1977); Clark v. State, 672 A.2d 1004, 1010 
(Del. 1996). 
30 
 
increasingly shifted the locus of authority for capital sentencing determinations 
away from juries and toward judges.103  In effect then, Furman and the July 2nd 
cases set in motion a historically unprecedented period in which sentencing in 
capital cases was distinct from the conviction phase, in which judges in some states 
came to have a more critical role, and in which it was not even clear that juries had 
to have a role at all.104 
When the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed these capital sentencing statutes 
that state legislatures enacted or revised in the wake of Furman and Gregg, the 
Court also addressed cases focused on defendants‘ rights under the Sixth 
Amendment.  More specifically, after the states enacted statutory approaches to 
satisfy Furman‘s key mandates, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a number of 
decisions addressing various issues regarding the respective roles of judges and 
juries in capital sentencing. 
 In Spaziano v. Florida,105 for example, the Supreme Court reviewed 
Florida‘s capital sentencing scheme, which allowed the sentencing judge to 
override a jury‘s recommendation of life imprisonment and impose a death 
sentence.106  This is precisely what happened at Spaziano‘s sentencing, and 
Spaziano contended ―that allowing a judge to override a jury‘s recommendation of 
                                                 
103 See Douglass, supra note 6, at 1984; Stevenson, supra note 45, at 1140. 
104 See Liebman, supra note 52, at 30–34. 
105 468 U.S. 447 (1984), overruled by Hurst v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. 616 (2016). 
106 See id. at 451. 
31 
 
life violates the Eighth Amendment‘s proscription against ‗cruel and unusual 
punishments,‘‖ and ―that the [judicial override] practice violates the Sixth 
Amendment.‖107  Despite the fact that the Supreme Court had recently held in a 
number of cases that procedural protections from the guilt stage of a criminal 
case—including those guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment—also applied at the 
penalty stage,108 the Court rejected Spaziano‘s arguments and upheld Florida‘s 
capital sentencing scheme, holding ―that there is no constitutional imperative that a 
jury have the responsibility of deciding whether the death penalty should be 
imposed.‖109  As to Spaziano‘s Sixth Amendment argument, the Court‘s 
reasoning—echoing its slight Eighth Amendment discussion in Proffitt—was so 
cursory that it can be quoted in full:  
This Court, of course, has recognized that a capital proceeding in 
many respects resembles a trial on the issue of guilt or innocence.  
Because the ―embarrassment, expense and ordeal . . . faced by a 
defendant at the penalty phase of a . . . capital murder trial . . . are at 
least equivalent to that faced by any defendant at the guilt phase of a 
criminal trial,‖ the Court has concluded that the Double Jeopardy 
Clause bars the State from making repeated efforts to persuade a 
                                                 
107 Id. at 457–58. 
108 See, e.g.,  Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686–87 (1984) (holding that criminal 
defendants have a right to effective assistance of counsel at ―[a] capital sentencing proceeding‖ 
because such a proceeding ―is sufficiently like a trial in its adversarial format and in the 
existences of standards for decision‖); Mempa v. Ray, 389 U.S. 128, 134 (1967) (explicitly 
extending the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to sentencing); see also White, supra note 13, at 
18 n.145 (―Prior to Spaziano, the Court had decided a series of cases holding that procedural 
protections at the guilt stage are also applicable at the penalty stage.  See, e.g., Estelle v. Smith, 
451 U.S. 454 (1981) (privilege against self-incrimination and right to counsel under Massiah); 
Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430 (1981) (double jeopardy); Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 
349 (1977) (right to confront and rebut government evidence).‖). 
109 Spaziano, 468 U.S. at 465; see also id. at 464. 
32 
 
sentencer to impose the death penalty.  The fact that a capital 
sentencing is like a trial in the respects significant to the Double 
Jeopardy Clause, however, does not mean that it is like a trial in 
respects significant to the Sixth Amendment‘s guarantee of a jury 
trial. The Court‘s concern in Bullington was with the risk that the 
State, with all its resources, would wear a defendant down, thereby 
leading to an erroneously imposed death penalty.  There is no similar 
danger involved in denying a defendant a jury trial on the sentencing 
issue of life or death.  The sentencer, whether judge or jury, has a 
constitutional obligation to evaluate the unique circumstances of the 
individual defendant and the sentencer‘s decision for life is final.  
More important, despite its unique aspects, a capital sentencing 
proceeding involves the same fundamental issue involved in any other 
sentencing 
proceeding—a 
determination 
of 
the 
appropriate 
punishment to be imposed on an individual.  The Sixth Amendment 
never has been thought to guarantee a right to a jury determination of 
that issue.110 
 
Turning to Spaziano‘s Eighth Amendment argument, the Court explained that the 
fact that the only three states allowed a judge to override a jury‘s recommendation 
of life does not mean that those states‘ capital sentencing schemes are 
unconstitutional because ―[t]he Eighth Amendment is not violated every time a 
State reaches a conclusion different from a majority of its sisters over how best to 
administer its criminal laws.‖111 
The Court reaffirmed and extended its holding in Spaziano in several later 
cases, many of which also involved Florida‘s capital sentencing scheme.  In 
                                                 
110 Id. at 458–59 (citations omitted) (quoting Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 445 (1981)) 
(internal quotation marks omitted). 
111 Spaziano, 468 U.S. at 464. 
33 
 
Hildwin v. Florida,112 for example—―a per curiam decision without briefing, 
argument, or plenary consideration‖113—the Court held that ―the Sixth Amendment 
does not require that the specific findings authorizing the imposition of the 
sentence of death be made by the jury.‖114  Using Spaziano as a springboard, the 
Court reasoned that because ―the Sixth Amendment permits a judge to impose a 
sentence of death when the jury recommends life imprisonment, . . . it follows that 
it does not forbid the judge to make the written findings that authorize imposition 
of a death sentence when the jury unanimously recommends a death sentence.‖115 
And, in Clemons v. Mississippi,116 the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed its 
view that the Constitution did not require jury sentencing or that a jury make all 
factual findings that are necessary to sentence a defendant to death.117  The Court 
also explained in Clemons that a state appellate court may uphold a death sentence 
that is based in part on an invalid statutory aggravating factor—or, as I refer to it 
for the sake of simplicity and functional clarity, a ―death eligibility factor‖—as 
long as that error is harmless because, for example, a different death eligibility 
factor existed.118 
                                                 
112 490 U.S. 638 (1989), overruled by Hurst v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. 616 (2016). 
113 White, supra note 13, at 18. 
114 Hildwin, 490 U.S. at 640–41. 
115 Id. at 640 (emphasis added); see also White, supra note 13, at 18–19. 
116 494 U.S. 738 (1990). 
117 See id. at 745. 
118 See id. 
34 
 
The Supreme Court again rejected a defendant‘s argument that the 
Constitution requires jury sentencing in capital cases in Walton v. Arizona.119  
There, a capital defendant challenged Arizona‘s capital sentencing scheme under 
both the Sixth and Eighth Amendments.  The Court first rejected Walton‘s 
argument that Arizona‘s capital sentencing scheme, which required the trial judge 
to make all factual findings involved in capital sentencing and gave the jury no 
advisory role, was sufficiently distinct from the Florida scheme the Court had 
upheld in Spaziano and Hildwin scheme, which did give the jury at least an 
advisory role, to make the Arizona statute more vulnerable under the Sixth 
Amendment.120  The Court was not troubled by any lesser role for the jury.  
Instead, relying on Spaziano, Hildwin, and Clemons, the Court then held ―that the 
Arizona capital sentencing scheme does not violate the Sixth Amendment.‖121  
Second, the Court rejected Walton‘s Eighth Amendment argument, concluding that 
a death penalty statute does not violate the Eighth Amendment solely because it 
puts the burden of proving mitigating factors by a preponderance of the evidence 
on the defendant.122 
                                                 
119 497 U.S. 639, overruled by Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002). 
120 See id. at 648. 
121 Id. at 649. 
122 See id. at 650. 
35 
 
Finally, in Harris v. Alabama,123 the Supreme Court held that a capital 
sentencing scheme that ―vests capital sentencing authority in the trial judge, but 
requires the judge to consider an advisory jury verdict‖ was not unconstitutional.124 
The Court noted the similarities between the Florida and Alabama schemes, and 
observed that the key difference was that the Florida scheme which it had 
previously upheld in the cases discussed above, unlike its Alabama counterpart, 
required a trial judge to ―give ‗great weight‘ to the jury‘s recommendation 
and . . . not override the advisory verdict of life unless ‗the facts suggesting a 
sentence of death [are] so clear and convincing that virtually no reasonable person 
could differ.‘‖125  Harris argued that the failure of Alabama‘s statute to provide 
similar guidelines for considering the jury‘s advisory verdict rendered the statute 
unconstitutional.126  But the Court disagreed:  ―The Constitution permits the trial 
judge, acting alone, to impose a capital sentence.  It is thus not offended when a 
State further requires the sentencing judge to consider a jury‘s recommendation 
and trusts the judge to give it the proper weight.‖127 
* 
* 
* 
In sum, as the law stood at the turn of the twentieth century, the Supreme 
Court itself held that jury sentencing was not required in capital cases, even though 
                                                 
123 513 U.S. 504 (1995). 
124 Id. at 505. 
125 Id. at 509 (quoting Tedder v. State, 322 So. 2d 908, 910 (Fla. 1975)). 
126 See id. at 511. 
127 Id. at 515. 
36 
 
jury sentencing in death penalty cases had been predominant throughout our 
nation‘s history before Furman128 and continued to be so.129  But, the Supreme 
Court had placed some limits on death sentences, such as holding mandatory death 
sentences unconstitutional and requiring that the sentencer consider mitigating 
factors.130  And, the Supreme Court itself had recognized that its own jurisprudence 
had essentially required at least two different stages within a case if a state was to 
impose the death penalty consistent with the Constitution.  To address the 
requirement of Furman that capital sentencing discretion be narrowed to help 
avoid arbitrary results, there must first be a phase that the Supreme Court has at 
different times called the ―definition stage‖131 and the ―eligibility phase,‖132 the 
latter of which I adopt as the more appropriate term.  I refer to it as the eligibility 
phase because that is the phase in which the defendant is found eligible for the 
death penalty, typically as a result of a finding that one or more aggravating factors 
exists that qualify his crime as making death an authorized punishment.  This 
eligibility phase responds to the requirements of Furman and its progeny, such as 
Godfrey v. Georgia133 and Maynard v. Cartwright134 that there be a meaningful 
                                                 
128 See supra note 15 and accompanying text.  
129 See Harris, 513 U.S. at 516–17 (Stevens, J., dissenting). 
130 See supra notes 85–92 and accompanying text. 
131 See, e.g., Zant, 462 U.S. at 879. 
132 See, e.g., Kansas v. Carr, 136 S. Ct. 633, 642 (2016); Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373, 
381 (1999). 
133 446 U.S. 420 (1980). 
134 486 U.S. 356 (1988). 
37 
 
―narrowing‖ of the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty.135  The 
statutory eligibility factors are typically referred to as aggravating factors, because 
they are seen as special circumstances that take a very serious crime, such as an 
unlawful homicide, and make it particularly blameworthy and thus subject to the 
perpetrator to a possible death sentence.  Common aggravators include killing a 
victim who is a peace officer and committing murder in the course of another 
felony.136  As the U.S. Supreme Court itself has done for precision at times, I use 
the term ―death eligibility factor‖ to describe these circumstances because it more 
clearly articulates what they are, and distinguishes them from the broader use of an 
aggravating circumstance in the next required phase.137  Although having their 
origins in Furman‘s mandate that the circumstances in which the death penalty be 
imposed be narrowed, death eligibility factors have proliferated.138  In Delaware, 
                                                 
135 See Godfrey, 446 U.S. at 433; Maynard, 486 U.S. at 363–64; see also White, supra note 13, at 
20 n.160. 
136 See Garvey, supra note 45, at 1035; Smith, supra note 48, at 297–98. 
137 See Brown v. Sanders, 546 U.S. 212, 216 n.2 (2006) (―Our cases have frequently employed 
the terms ‗aggravating circumstance‘ or ‗aggravating factor‘ to refer to those statutory factors 
which determine death eligibility in satisfaction of Furman‘s narrowing requirement.  This 
terminology becomes confusing when, as in this case, a State employs the term ‗aggravating 
circumstance‘ to refer to factors that play a different role, determining which defendants eligible 
for the death penalty will actually receive that penalty.  To avoid confusion, this opinion will use 
the term ‗eligibility factor‘ to describe a factor that performs the constitutional narrowing 
function.‖ (emphasis in original) (citations omitted)). 
138 See Robert J. Smith, Forgetting Furman, 100 IOWA L. REV. 1149, 1160 (2015); Jeffrey L. 
Kirchmeier, Casting a Wider Net: Another Decade of Legislative Expansion of the Death Penalty 
in the United States, 34 PEPP. L. REV. 1, 25 (2006); James S. Liebman & Lawrence C. Marshall, 
Less is Better: Justice Stevens and the Narrowed Death Penalty, 74 FORDHAM L. REV. 1607, 
1649 (2006). 
38 
 
for example, there are now twenty-two circumstances that can make a defendant 
death eligible.139 
 
That next phase, which has been referred to among other things as the 
―weighing phase,‖ the ―selection phase,‖ or in my view, the ―ultimate sentencing 
phase,‖ is when there is an individualized determination of the sentence for the 
defendant.140  This phase was required because the Supreme Court made clear that 
even if a state had narrowed the circumstances for which death was the authorized 
punishment to address the concerns raised in Furman, it still could not make death 
a mandatory sentence.141  Instead, Furman and the July 2nd cases taken together 
mandated that a sentencing phase occur during which all relevant factors bearing 
on whether the defendant should live or die must be considered, and during which 
the defendant has a constitutional right to effective representation in presenting 
evidence mitigating against the imposition of death.  In all circumstances, the state 
must afford the option for the defendant to be given the comparatively more 
merciful option of a lengthy prison sentence as opposed to death.142  As discussed, 
these developments and their complexity gave rise to a small number of statutes 
that cabined the jury‘s historical role in the death penalty sentencing process.  A 
notable example was the amendment to Delaware‘s capital sentencing scheme in 
                                                 
139 See 11 Del. C. § 4209(e)(1). 
140 Smith, supra note 48, at 364–65. 
141 See Douglass, supra note 6, at 1994–95. 
142 See supra notes 83–84 and accompanying text. 
39 
 
1991, which eliminated the unanimous jury requirement in capital sentencing as a 
direct response to the failure of prosecutors to convince an entire jury to vote for 
death in a high-profile case.143  As scholars observed, ―the presumption that judges 
would be more willing to than juries to impose capital punishment appeared to 
motivate the statutory change to judge sentencing.‖144 
With the intricacy of this two-stage process arose further questions about the 
respective role of judge and jury in the sentencing phase process, questions that 
came to the fore early in this century in an important non-capital case, which I now 
discuss. 
VI. 
 
In 2000, the Supreme Court decided Apprendi, which marked a major shift 
in the U.S. Supreme Court‘s Sixth Amendment jurisprudence and created the 
momentum behind the line of cases leading directly to Hurst.  The relevant facts of 
that non-death penalty case were simple.  Apprendi, who was white, had pled 
guilty to multiple felonies arising from an event in which he fired several bullets 
into the home of a black family.145  After holding an evidentiary hearing on 
Apprendi‘s intent, the trial judge concluded that Apprendi had been motivated by 
                                                 
143 See Hans et al., supra note 36, at 75 (the General Assembly eliminated the unanimity 
requirement from § 4209 because the jury in a highly publicized murder case could not agree 
unanimously on death for any of the four defendants); Joseph T. Walsh, The Limits of 
Proportionality Review in Death Penalty Cases, 21 DEL. LAW. 13, 14 (2004).  This Court upheld 
that amendment in State v. Cohen, 604 A.2d 846 (Del. 1992). 
144 Johnson et al., supra note 40, at 1954. 
145 See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 469–70. 
40 
 
racial bias.146  Under New Jersey law, if a defendant ―acted with a purpose to 
intimidate an individual or group of individuals because of race, color, gender, 
handicap, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity,‖ he could be deemed to have 
committed a ―hate crime‖ and be eligible for a longer sentence.147  Thus, the trial 
judge found that the ―hate crime‖ sentencing enhancement applied, and the judge 
increased Apprendi‘s sentence accordingly.148  The issue the U.S. Supreme Court 
faced in Apprendi was whether a judge, as opposed to a jury, could find facts that 
increased the defendant‘s maximum sentence.149  The Court held that ―[o]ther than 
the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond 
the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond 
a reasonable doubt.‖150  In extending Apprendi into the sentencing guidelines 
context in Blakely v. Washington,151 the Supreme Court explained ―that the 
‗statutory maximum‘ for Apprendi purposes is that maximum sentence a judge 
may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted 
by the defendant. . . .  In other words, the relevant ‗statutory maximum‘ is not the 
                                                 
146 See id. at 470–71. 
147 Id. at 469 (quoting N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:44-3(e) (West Supp. 1999–2000)) (internal quotation 
marks omitted). 
148 See id. at 471. 
149 See id. at 469. 
150 Id. at 490. 
151 542 U.S. 296 (2004). 
41 
 
maximum sentence a judge may impose after finding additional facts, but the 
maximum he may impose without any additional findings.‖152 
Shortly after Apprendi, the Supreme Court decided Ring v. Arizona,153 which 
applied Apprendi for the first time to the death penalty sentencing process.154  Ring 
was a case in which the Court was again faced with the constitutionality of the 
Arizona capital sentencing scheme that it had upheld against both Sixth and Eighth 
Amendment challenges in Walton.155  Ring confirmed that Apprendi‘s rule extends 
to the death context, reasoning that ―[c]apital defendants, no less than noncapital 
defendants . . . , are entitled to a jury determination of any fact on which the 
legislature conditions an increase in their maximum punishment.‖156  In other 
words, the Court explained, ―[i]f a State makes an increase in a defendant‘s 
authorized punishment contingent on the finding of a fact, that fact—no matter 
how the State labels it—must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.‖157  
And then, recognizing that Walton and Apprendi were irreconcilable, Ring 
―overrule[d] Walton to the extent that it allows a sentencing judge, sitting without a 
jury, to find an aggravating circumstance necessary for imposition of the death 
                                                 
152 Id. at 303–04 (emphasis in original). 
153 536 U.S. 584. 
154 See W. David Ball, Heinous, Atrocious, and Cruel: Apprendi, Indeterminate Sentencing, and 
the Meaning of Punishment, 109 COLUM. L. REV. 893, 896–97 (2009). 
155 See supra notes 119–122 and accompanying text. 
156 Ring, 536 U.S. at 589. 
157 Id. at 602. 
42 
 
penalty.‖158  The Court held that ―[b]ecause Arizona‘s enumerated aggravating 
factors operate as ‗the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense,‘ the 
Sixth Amendment requires that they be found by a jury.‖159  
VII.  
A. 
 
Ring occasioned one of the last major changes to Delaware‘s own death 
penalty statute, and is the logical point at which to explain what our current statute 
provides.  As of Ring, the Delaware statute had last been amended in relevant part 
in 1991 and provided that the jury‘s findings as to whether any death eligibility 
factors existed and whether the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating 
factors were just advisory.160  The sentencing judge had the final say in both the 
eligibility and ultimate sentencing stages.161  Delaware‘s approach was logical in 
light of the post-Furman decisions.  By providing that only certain homicides that 
involved statutorily defined circumstances would make a defendant eligible for the 
death penalty,162 the statute addressed the need to narrow the class of defendants 
who could be executed.  By providing for a sentencing phase during which those 
factors that aggravated toward the death penalty and those that mitigated against it 
                                                 
158 Id. at 609. 
159 Id. (internal citation omitted) (quoting Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 494 n.19).  
160 See Brice v. State, 815 A.2d 314, 320 (2003). 
161 See 11 Del. C. § 4209(d) (1991); S.B. 79, 137th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Del. 1991); S.B. 
449, 141st Gen Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Del. 2002). 
162 See 11 Del. C. § 4209(d)(1)(a) (1991). 
43 
 
would be rationally considered,163 the Delaware statute addressed the constitutional 
mandate that a death sentence not be mandatory, and instead be the product of a 
rational, individualized process whereby any mitigating factor could be considered.  
And, the statute also provided for an appellate process of proportionality review as 
a further safeguard against the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty.164 
In Ring itself, the U.S. Supreme Court took note that Delaware‘s 
then-existing capital sentencing scheme was different from the Arizona statute it 
was addressing.  The Ring Court explained that Delaware was one of four ―hybrid 
systems, in which the jury renders an advisory verdict but the judge makes the 
ultimate sentencing determinations.‖165  But Ring seemed to make Delaware‘s 
statute vulnerable because the jury‘s determination as to eligibility was not 
necessary, just advisory.  Thus, the General Assembly amended Delaware‘s death 
penalty statute, § 4209, to reflect its current form.  The amendment changed the 
jury‘s role in the eligibility phase ―from one that was advisory under the 1991 
version of § 4209 into one that is now determinative as to the existence of any 
statutory aggravating circumstances [i.e., death eligibility factors].‖166 
                                                 
163 See id. § 4209(d)(1)(b). 
164 See id. § 4209(g). 
165 Ring, 636 U.S. at 608 n.6. 
166 Brice v. State, 815 A.3d 314, 320 (Del. 2003); see also House Debate on S.B. 449, 141st Gen. 
Assembly (Del. 2002) (statement on behalf of the Delaware Department of Justice); Senate 
Debate on S.B. 449, 141st Gen. Assembly (Del. 2000) (statement on behalf of the Delaware 
Department of Justice). 
44 
 
One year after Ring and the accompanying amendment to § 4209, this Court 
decided Garden v. State,167 which impelled an amendment that went in the other 
direction and reduced the jury‘s role in the death penalty sentencing process even 
further.  In Garden, this Court reviewed the Superior Court‘s imposition of a death 
sentence despite the jury‘s recommendation of life sentences by ten-to-two and 
nine-to-three votes on intentional murder and felony murder charges, respectively.  
In response to that judicial override, Garden reversed the sentence of death and 
held ―that a trial judge must give a jury recommendation of life ‗great weight‘ and 
may override such a recommendation only if the facts suggesting a sentence of 
death are so clear and convincing that virtually no reasonable person could 
differ.‖168  As was the case with the legislation in 1991 eliminating the unanimity 
requirement for § 4209,169 the failure of the State to obtain a death sentence 
because juror opposition prevented that result led to legislation to diminish the 
influence of the cross-section of the community empanelled to decide whether the 
defendant was guilty.  To wit, to overrule Garden‘s ―great weight‖ standard, 
§ 4209 was amended ―to provide that the jury‘s recommendation shall only be 
‗given such consideration as deemed appropriate.‘‖170 
                                                 
167 815 A.2d 327 (Del. 2003). 
168 Id. at 343. 
169 See supra note 143 and accompanying text. 
170 Michael L. Radelet, Overriding Jury Sentencing Recommendations in Florida Capital Cases: 
An Update and Possible Half-Requiem, 2011 MICH. ST. L. REV. 793, 800. 
45 
 
Under the current version of § 4209, the Superior Court holds a separate 
hearing to determine whether a defendant found guilty of first degree murder 
should be sentenced to death or life imprisonment without parole.  Unless the 
defendant has waived her right to a jury trial, the jury that found the defendant 
guilty is charged with answering two questions:  (1) ―[w]hether the evidence shows 
beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of at least 1 aggravating circumstance 
[i.e., death eligibility factor] as enumerated in subsection (e)‖; and (2) ―[w]hether, 
by a preponderance of the evidence . . . , the aggravating circumstances found to 
exist outweigh the mitigating circumstances found to exist.‖171   
The jury‘s answers to the two questions in § 4209(c)(3) are used in the two 
phases of sentencing described above, the eligibility phase and the ultimate 
sentencing phase.  The eligibility phase involves only the jury, not the judge.  
Specifically, the jury determines whether at least one death eligibility factor exists 
beyond a reasonable doubt.  ―[T]he jury must be unanimous as to the existence of 
that statutory aggravating circumstance [i.e., death eligibility factor].‖172  If the jury 
finds that no death eligibility factor exists, the judge must sentence the defendant 
to life imprisonment.173  But, if the jury finds that at least one death eligibility 
                                                 
171 11 Del. C. § 4209(c)(3). 
172 Id. § 4209(c)(3)(b)(1); see also id. § 4209(e)(1).   
173 Id. § 4209(d)(2). 
46 
 
factor exists, then the defendant is death eligible and the process moves on to the 
ultimate sentencing phase.174   
Unlike the eligibility phase, under § 4209 the ultimate sentencing phase 
involves both the jury and the judge.  The ultimate sentencing ―phase does not 
increase the maximum punishment, but only ensures that the punishment is 
appropriate and proportional.‖175  First, the jury decides ―[w]hether, by a 
preponderance of the evidence, after weighing all relevant evidence in aggravation 
or mitigation . . . , the aggravating circumstances found to exist outweigh the 
mitigating circumstances found to exist.‖176  Then, 
the Court, after considering the findings and recommendation of the 
jury and without hearing or reviewing any additional evidence, shall 
impose a sentence of death if the Court finds by a preponderance of 
the evidence . . . that the aggravating circumstances found by the 
Court to exist outweigh the mitigating circumstances found by the 
Court to exist.177 
 
As discussed, the jury‘s finding as to whether the aggravating circumstances 
outweigh the mitigating circumstances ―shall not be binding upon the Court,‖ but 
―shall be given such consideration as deemed appropriate by the Court.‖178  The 
trial judge thus has the final say in deciding whether a capital defendant is 
sentenced to death and need not give any particular weight to the jury‘s view. 
                                                 
174 Id. § 4209(d)(1). 
175 Swan v. State, 28 A.3d 362, 390 (Del. 2011); see also Reyes v. State, 819 A.2d 305, 317 (Del. 
2003). 
176 11 Del. C. § 4209(c)(3)(a)(2). 
177 Id. § 4209(d)(1). 
178 Id. 
47 
 
B. 
 
After § 4209 was amended in the wake of Ring, this Court answered four 
certified questions from the Superior Court in Brice v. State.179  Brice found that 
the jury‘s finding of a death eligibility factor in the eligibility phase—not the 
judge‘s determination in the ultimate sentencing phase—is what makes a defendant 
eligible for a death sentence under § 4209: 
Once the jury determines that a statutory aggravating factor exists, the 
defendant becomes death eligible.  Although a judge cannot sentence 
a defendant to death without finding that the aggravating factors 
outweigh the mitigating factors, it is not that determination that 
increases the maximum punishment.  Rather, the maximum 
punishment is increased by the finding of the statutory aggravator 
[i.e., death eligibility factor].  At that point a judge can sentence a 
defendant to death, but only if the judge finds that the aggravating 
factors outweigh the mitigating factors.  Therefore, the weighing of 
aggravating circumstances against mitigating circumstances does not 
increase the punishment.  Rather, it ensures that the punishment 
imposed is appropriate and proportional.180   
 
Brice also considered the ultimate sentencing phase of the Delaware statute, 
which requires the sentencing judge to make her own determination of whether the 
aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, a decision that 
is informed by a jury vote but not dictated by it unless the jury majority 
recommends a life sentence.  In other words, this Court examined the reality that 
                                                 
179 815 A.3d 314. 
180 Id. at 322 (internal citations omitted); see also Swan, 28 A.3d at 390; Ortiz v. State, 869 A.2d 
285, 305–06 (Del. 2005); Reyes, 819 A.2d at 316; Norcross v. State, 816 A.2d 757, 767 (Del. 
2003). 
48 
 
the sentencing judge could rely on aggravating factors in addition to whatever 
death eligibility factors were found by the jury.  These factors—which I have 
defined as aggravating factors for clarity—need not have been found by the jury.  
But, the Court did not view that feature of Delaware‘s capital sentencing scheme as 
problematic:  ―Ring does not . . . require that the jury find every fact relied upon by 
the sentencing judge in the imposition of the sentence.‖181  Thus, as long as the 
jury has already found one death eligibility factor as required by Ring, the reality 
that a sentencing judge under our statute may consider aggravating factors that the 
jury does not find beyond a reasonable doubt ―does not ‗increase‘ the maximum 
penalty that a defendant can receive.‖182  In other words, Brice embraced the 
reading of Ring summarized by Justice Scalia in his concurrence in that case, in 
which he stated: 
What today‘s decision says is that the jury must find the existence of 
the fact that an aggravating factor [i.e., a death eligibility] existed.  
Those States that leave the ultimate life-or-death decision to the judge 
may continue to do so—by requiring a prior jury finding of [an] 
aggravating factor [i.e., a death eligibility factor] in the sentencing 
phase or, more simply, by placing the aggravating-factor 
determination [i.e., death eligibility determination] (where it logically 
belongs anyway) in the guilt phase.183 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
181 Brice, 815 A.2d at 322. 
182 Id. 
183 Ring, 536 U.S. at 612–13 (Scalia, J., concurring). 
49 
 
VIII. 
 
This lengthy tour has now arrived at Hurst, the new decision of the U.S. 
Supreme Court that our Superior Court considered such a materially new addition 
to our nation‘s constitutional jurisprudence to certify us questions covering 
essentially the same issues as we confronted in Brice.  The reason our learned 
colleague did so is obvious from a close reading of Hurst, because Hurst can either 
be seen, as I candidly admit, either as a plain application of Ring to a state, Florida, 
that did not respond to Ring‘s mandate, or as signaling the recognition that a jury‘s 
role in the death penalty process cannot be rigidly confined to the eligibility phase. 
As is now widely known, Hurst held that Florida‘s capital sentencing 
scheme was unconstitutional.184  The Florida scheme evaluated in Hurst differed 
from Delaware‘s in three material ways.  First, Florida‘s statute charged the jury 
with deciding by a majority vote both (1) whether a death eligibility factor exists; 
and (2) whether the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating 
circumstances.  Second, Florida‘s statute did not require the jury to decide whether 
a death eligibility factor exists beyond a reasonable doubt.  And third, a jury under 
Florida‘s statute made ―an ‗advisory sentence‘ of life or death without specifying 
the factual basis of its recommendation.‖185  In Delaware, by contrast, a jury must 
                                                 
184 See Hurst, 136 S. Ct. at 619. 
185 Id. at 620 (quoting Fla. Stat. § 921.141(2) (2015)); see also Robin Maher, Hurst v. Florida: 
How Much Does the Sixth Amendment Really Protect?, GEO. WASH. L. REV. DOCKET (Jan. 17, 
50 
 
find a death eligibility factor unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt.  The 
jury in Delaware is then charged with making a non-unanimous decision of 
whether the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors, under a 
preponderance of the evidence standard.  That recommendation, like in Florida, is 
advisory,186 but unlike Florida, does not ask jurors to specifically vote whether they 
believe death is the appropriate punishment.  Despite these differences, there are 
important similarities between the capital sentencing scheme struck down in Hurst 
and § 4209:  ―Both Florida‘s invalidated law and Delaware‘s leave the ultimate 
sentencing phase and the final sentencing decision in the hands of a judge.  Both 
have a jury make a recommendation to the court, but this is merely advisory.‖187 
In finding that the Florida capital sentencing scheme was unconstitutional, 
the Supreme Court focused on the fact that it required the judge to find facts 
because the jury‘s ―recommendation‖ was just that—a recommendation that was 
advisory and to which the judge was not bound.  The Court explained that ―the 
Florida sentencing statute does not make a defendant eligible for death until 
‗findings by the court that such person shall be punished by death.‘‖188  That 
statute was unconstitutional, the Court explained, because ―[t]he Sixth Amendment 
                                                                                                                                                             
2016), 
http://www.gwlr.org/hurst-v-florida-how-much-does-the-sixth-amendment-really-
protect/; Judith L. Ritter, Time to Rethink Delaware’s Death Penalty?, 34 DEL. LAW. 1, 15 
(2016). 
186 See 11 Del. C. § 4209(c)–(d). 
187 Ritter, supra note 185, at 16. 
188 Hurst, 136 S. Ct. at 620 (quoting Fla. Stat. § 775.082(1)) (emphasis in original). 
51 
 
requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of 
death.‖189 
In explaining its understanding of Ring, the Hurst Court observed that 
―Ring‘s death sentence . . . violated his right to have a jury find the facts behind his 
punishment‖ because ―[h]ad Ring‘s judge not engaged in factfinding, Ring would 
have received a life sentence.‖190  The Court then explained: 
As with Timothy Ring, the maximum punishment Timothy Hurst 
could have received without any judge-made findings was life in 
prison without parole.  As with Ring, a judge increased Hurst‘s 
authorized punishment based on her own factfinding.  In light of Ring, 
we hold that Hurst‘s sentence violates the Sixth Amendment.191 
 
In holding that Florida‘s capital sentencing scheme was unconstitutional, Hurst 
expressly overruled its prior decisions addressing Florida‘s death penalty statute in 
Spaziano and Hildwin ―in relevant part‖192—both cases in which the Court had 
rejected a defendant‘s argument that jury sentencing is constitutionally required in 
capital cases:  ―Spaziano and Hildwin summarized earlier precedent to conclude 
that the Sixth Amendment does not require that the specific findings authorizing 
the imposition of the sentence of death be made by the jury.  Their conclusion was 
wrong, and irreconcilable with Apprendi.‖193  This was a move that some Justices 
                                                 
189 Hurst, 136 S. Ct. at 619. 
190 Id. at 621. 
191 Id. at 622 (emphasis added). 
192 Id. at 623. 
193 Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 
52 
 
had been advocating for some time.194  But, by overruling those cases only ―in 
relevant part,‖ the Court left open the notion that they were problematic only 
insofar as Florida had not required a jury to make every fact finding required to 
render the defendant eligible for death.  The use of the term ―authorizing‖ could be 
read as supporting that view, although the term could also be seen as ambiguous 
and functionally indistinct from the term ―necessary.‖ 
That is, the meaning of Hurst is contestable because it uses language at 
critical points in a way that is not necessarily consistent.  For example, there is a 
portion of Hurst that seems to be a vanilla application of Ring.  The Court 
explained that ―[t]he analysis the Ring Court applied to Arizona‘s sentencing 
scheme applies equally to Florida‘s.‖195  But, there are other portions of Hurst 
which use broader, or at least less narrowly cabined language, and I understand 
these portions to be those which largely motivate the questions posed to us and the 
contesting positions of the parties.  For example, the Court couched its holding in 
broader language, explaining that a jury must ―find each fact necessary to impose a 
sentence of death.‖196 
 
The Supreme Court‘s use of the term ―necessary‖ in Hurst also has 
relevance because the author of Hurst, Justice Sotomayor, had earlier issued a 
                                                 
194 See, e.g., Woodward v. Alabama, 134 S. Ct. 405, 407 (2013) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting from 
denial of cert.) (calling for reconsideration of Spaziano); Harris, 513 U.S. at 524–26 (Stevens, J., 
dissenting). 
195 Hurst, 136 S. Ct. at 621–22. 
196 Id. at 619 (emphasis added). 
53 
 
dissenting opinion from a denial of certiorari, in which she wrote that the ―required 
finding that the aggravating factors of a defendant‘s crime outweigh the mitigating 
factors is . . . necessary to impose the death penalty.‖197  In other words, if by 
―necessary‖ in Hurst, the Supreme Court in fact meant what it said in an 
unqualified way, these factors would include the findings that its own 
jurisprudence mandate must be made at the ultimate sentencing phase before a 
defendant can be given a death sentence.  If these necessary findings must be made 
by a jury, then the approach taken by Delaware would be problematic. 
 
Notably, Hurst was not a unanimous decision.  It generated a concurrence 
from Justice Breyer, who is a passionate defender of judicial sentencing discretion 
in the context of non-capital cases, and dissented in both Apprendi and Ring.198  At 
the same time, Justice Breyer takes the position, which he anchors in the Eighth 
Amendment, that no death penalty sentence can be imposed without ―a jury, not a 
judge, mak[ing] the decision to sentence a defendant to death.‖199  ―[T]he danger of 
unwarranted imposition of the [death] penalty,‖ Justice Breyer believes, ―cannot be 
avoided unless ‗the decision to impose the death penalty is made by a jury rather 
than by a single governmental official.‖200  ―Even in jurisdictions where judges are 
                                                 
197 See Woodward, 134 S. Ct. at 410–11 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting from denial of cert.). 
198 See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 555 (Breyer, J., dissenting); Ring, 536 U.S. at 613 (Breyer, J., 
dissenting). 
199 Hurst, 136 S. Ct. at 624 (quoting Ring, 536 U.S. at 614 (Breyer, J., dissenting)). 
200 See Ring, 536 U.S. at 618 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (quoting Spaziano, 468 U.S. at 469 
(Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part))). 
54 
 
selected directly by the people, the jury remains uniquely capable of determining 
whether, given the community‘s views, capital punishment is appropriate in the 
particular case at hand.‖201  One can summarize Justice Breyer‘s position this way.  
He believes that it is so vital to the fairness, regularity, and non-cruelty of any 
administration of the death penalty that it must be preceded by a unanimous 
determination by a jury that the defendant should die.  He believes that without a 
cross-section of the community unanimously agreeing a defendant should die, the 
resulting penalty is cruel and unusual, because it so drastically departs from the 
American tradition.  As I note later, this sounds like an oblique way of saying that 
there is a fundamental right to have a jury say you should die before the state can 
execute you. 
 
Finally, Justice Alito dissented in Hurst.  Most importantly for present 
purposes, Justice Alito called for reconsideration of Ring because he believes that 
there is no Sixth Amendment right to have a jury decide any fact other than those 
necessary to guilt.202  Justice Alito then explained that ―even if Ring is assumed to 
be correct,‖ he would not extend it to Florida‘s capital sentencing scheme because 
of the differences between Florida‘s and Arizona‘s at the time of Ring.203 
                                                 
201 See id. at 616. 
202 See Hurst, 136 S. Ct. at 625 (Alito, J., dissenting). 
203 Id. 
55 
 
 
After the Supreme Court decided Hurst—and after we accepted the certified 
question before us—the Court vacated three Alabama death penalty convictions 
―in light of Hurst.‖204  Although these orders provide no extensive guidance on 
why or how Hurst affected the Alabama convictions, the obvious connection 
between these cases and Hurst is that they collectively involve two of the three 
capital sentencing schemes that permitted a judge to override a jury‘s 
recommendation of a life sentence before Hurst—those of Florida and Alabama.205  
The third such scheme is our own. 
IX. 
 
A. 
 
The five certified questions are: 
 
(1) 
Under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, may a 
sentencing judge in a capital jury proceeding, independent of the jury, 
find the existence of ―any aggravating circumstance,‖ statutory or 
non-statutory, that has been alleged by the State for weighing in the 
selection phase of a capital sentencing proceeding? 
 
(2) 
If the finding of the existence of ―any aggravating circumstance,‖ 
statutory or non-statutory, that has been alleged by the State for 
weighing in the selection phase of a capital sentencing proceeding 
must be made by a jury, must the jury make the finding unanimously 
and beyond a reasonable doubt to comport with federal constitutional 
standards? 
                                                 
204 Johnson v. Alabama, 136 S. Ct. 1837 (2016); Wimbley v. Alabama, __ S. Ct. __, 2016 WL 
410937 (May 31, 2016); Kirksey v. Alabama, __ S. Ct. __, 2016 WL 378578 (June 6, 2016). 
205 Woodward, 134 S. Ct. at 407 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting from denial of cert.); Ross 
Kleinstuber, ―Only a Recommendation‖: How Delaware Capital Sentencing Law Subverts 
Meaningful Deliberations and Jurors’ Feelings of Responsibility, 19 WIDENER L. REV. 321, 325 
(2013). 
56 
 
 
(3) 
Does the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution require a 
jury, not a sentencing judge, to find that the aggravating 
circumstances found to exist outweigh the mitigating circumstances 
found to exist because, under 11 Del. C. § 4209, this is the critical 
finding upon which the sentencing judge ―shall impose a sentence of 
death‖? 
 
(4) 
If the finding that the aggravating circumstances found to exist 
outweigh the mitigating circumstances found to exist must be made by 
a jury, must the jury make that finding unanimously and beyond a 
reasonable doubt to comport with federal constitutional standards? 
 
(5) 
If any procedure in 11 Del. C. § 4209‘s capital sentencing scheme 
does not comport with federal constitutional standards, can the 
provision for such be severed from the remainder of 11 Del. C.  
§ 4209, and the Court proceed with instructions to the jury that 
comport with federal constitutional standards? 
 
 
 
 
Fundamentally, the first four questions may be summarized this way:  Must 
any death sentence be preceded by a unanimous jury verdict concluding that after 
considering all the relevant aggravating and mitigating factors, the defendant 
should suffer execution as his punishment, rather than the comparatively more 
merciful option of a lengthy prison sentence?  And, if so, must the jury make that 
decision beyond a reasonable doubt?   
The advocates before us take dividing positions on these questions and do so 
with clarity and skill, and with a close attention to the precedent.  From the State‘s 
perspective, the answer to the question above is no.  The State‘s well-written and 
well-argued position is that Hurst must be read contextually and narrowly, and that 
its use of the term ―necessary‖ cannot be divorced from other language in the 
57 
 
opinion relying on Ring and Apprendi.  By ―necessary,‖ says the State, Hurst refers 
only to those fact findings necessary to make the defendant statutorily eligible to 
receive a death sentence.  That is, in the parlance I use, the State argues that the 
jury need only determine unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt that a death 
eligibility factor exists.  Beyond that point, any role for the jury is entirely optional, 
and a state can in fact dispense altogether with a role for the jury, and allow a 
judge to use his own reasoned discretion to weigh the aggravating and mitigating 
factors and decide whether to impose the death penalty.  Put simply, the State 
argues that Hurst should be seen as a clean-up case, where a state, Florida—that 
did not view Ring as applying to its statute because the Supreme Court had not 
overruled its decisions in Spaziano and Hildwin, in which it had upheld Florida‘s 
capital sentencing scheme—was informed that it had to abide by Ring.  The bright 
line for the Sixth Amendment, in the State‘s conception, is that a jury must find 
any fact necessary to authorize a form of punishment, for the narrow purpose of 
making a defendant eligible for that punishment.  By making the defendant eligible 
to receive that punishment, though, a jury need not play any role in the ultimate 
sentencing phase, even in a capital case.  In other words, the State embraces the 
reading of Ring given in Justice Scalia‘s concurrence in that case, and argues that 
his joinder in the Hurst majority opinion is further evidence of its limited meaning. 
58 
 
 
By contrast, counsel for Rauf (and several of the amicus curiae) view Hurst 
as going beyond Ring, and as standing for the proposition that if any finding of fact 
is necessary as a pre-condition to a death sentence, the Sixth Amendment requires 
that finding of fact to be made by a unanimous jury.  Rauf argues from the plain 
language of the Delaware statute that findings of fact that go beyond the existence 
of guilt and of a death eligibility factor are ―necessary‖ for a death sentence to be 
imposed in Delaware.  Absent factual findings that the aggravating factors 
outweigh the mitigating factors, a defendant must be given a life sentence under 
the Delaware statute.  Thus, these sentencing stage findings are literally ―necessary 
to impose a death sentence.‖206  Rauf‘s argument builds on other U.S. Supreme 
Court case law, which prevents states from having a statute whereby a death 
sentence is the automatic consequence of a guilty verdict, and which requires states 
to have a sentencing phase in which all mitigating factors must be rationally 
considered and after which the option of giving a non-capital sentence must exist.   
Rauf is joined by amicus curiae, who echo his arguments, but who also make 
a more fundamental argument, which is that there is no more fundamentally 
important role for a jury fairly drawn from the community than determining 
whether a defendant should live or die.207  They read Hurst as recognizing a more 
                                                 
206 Hurst, 136 S. Ct. at 619. 
207 See, e.g., Br. of Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at 9–12 (hereinafter 
―C. H. Houston Br.‖). 
59 
 
essential consideration that has been obscured in the complexity of the 
post-Furman world, which is that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury has perhaps 
its most powerful importance when the question is whether the defendant should 
live or die. 
B. 
 
Against this backdrop of § 4209 and the U.S. Supreme Court‘s capital 
sentencing decisions, I explain my answer to the five certified questions.  But, 
rather than addressing the first four questions in piecemeal fashion, I consider the 
broader implications of the federal Constitution and the Supreme Court‘s precedent 
addressing it on the role of the judge and the jury under § 4209.  The Sixth 
Amendment provides: 
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a 
speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district 
wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall 
have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the 
nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the 
witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining 
witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his 
defense.208 
 
I focus here on the question of who—jury or judge—may make the determination 
whether a defendant should receive a death sentence or not because I believe it is 
inarguable that the required determination in all contexts where the sentencing 
authority can give a defendant death or life involves factual determinations.  That 
                                                 
208 U.S. Const. amend. VI. 
60 
 
is clearly so under our own statute, which plainly requires that a specific finding be 
made before a death sentence can be issued.209  That finding is whether ―the 
aggravating circumstances found to exist outweigh the mitigating circumstances 
found to exist.‖210  Our prior decisions have often noted that sentencing decisions, 
including those in the death penalty context, involve an exercise of discretion 
based on a weighing of facts.211  In doing so, we broke no ground, but simply 
recognized an obvious reality reflected broadly in American jurisprudence that the 
weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors is ―a clear factfinding directive to 
which there is no exception.‖212  Thus, the question in this context is not whether 
factual determinations are involved in the weighing phase of capital sentencing, 
but whether the Sixth Amendment requires those factual judgments to be made by 
a jury. 
 
In one sense, the answer to the certified questions could be simple.  If when 
Hurst said ―necessary,‖ it meant that, then Delaware‘s death penalty statute is 
                                                 
209 See 11 Del. C. § 4209(c)–(d). 
210 Id. § 4209(c)(3). 
211 See, e.g., Zebroski v. State, 715 A.2d 75, 84 (Del. 1998) (―The balancing of aggravating and 
mitigating circumstances is not a quantitative exercise, but rather a reasoned judgment as to what 
factual situations require the imposition of death and which can be satisfied by life imprisonment 
in light of the totality of the circumstances present.‖ (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks 
omitted)); Ferguson v. State, 642 A.2d 772, 782 (Del. 1994) (―The weighing of aggravating and 
mitigating circumstances involves a qualitative rather than a quantitative consideration of the 
circumstances to determine the appropriate punishment.  That qualitative process requires that 
the jury and the judge carefully consider the specific facts of each case and, when appropriate, 
not to give one or more aggravating factors independent weight.‖ (internal quotation marks 
omitted) (footnotes omitted)). 
212 Cunningham v. California, 549 U.S. 270, 279 (2007); see also CAMPBELL, supra note 31, 
§ 9.3 at 354–59.  
61 
 
unconstitutional.  Under our statute the findings required to make a defendant 
―eligible‖ for the death penalty are not sufficient to enable him to be sentenced to 
death.  Rather, it is obvious that § 4209 makes other findings necessary.  That 
necessity is in fact dictated by U.S. Supreme Court precedent.   
In concluding that Hurst requires the invalidation of our state‘s approach to 
the death penalty, I do not wish to elide the potency of the other side of the 
question.  Hurst can be read as having used the loose language of necessity to 
describe only what is necessary to make a defendant death eligible, especially 
because the statute at issue in Hurst failed on that narrower basis, which 
Delaware‘s does not.  But, I am reluctant to conclude that the Supreme Court was 
unaware of the implications of requiring ―a jury, not a judge, to find each fact 
necessary to impose a sentence of death.‖213  If those words mean what they say, 
they extend the role of a death penalty jury beyond the question of eligibility.  
Even more, these words seem to be the latest spade work in the judicial unearthing 
of an unattractive byproduct of a lengthy period of judicial innovation. 
That byproduct is that the Furman line of U.S. Supreme Court precedent has 
been a causal factor in impelling a small number of states (of which Delaware is 
one) to adopt a death penalty system that would have been fundamentally alien to 
the founding generation, a system under which a defendant can be executed even if 
                                                 
213 Hurst, 136 S. Ct. at 619. 
 
62 
 
a unanimous jury does not believe that is the correct penalty.214  What has emerged 
is a system whereby there is a strange admixture of the role of judge and jury in 
this most sensitive of areas—an admixture that allows a defendant to go to his 
death without a jury of his peers unanimously concluding that he should do so.  
Although perhaps not compelled to do so by the formal logic of Hurst,215 I am 
persuaded that it is not tenable under the broader logic of the case, and a 
consideration of related provisions of the Constitution, including the Eighth 
Amendment, to pretend any longer that this admixture is consistent with the 
fundamental guarantee of a jury trial as it was understood throughout most of our 
history—one in which ―[t]he Founders viewed juries as so fundamental to the 
democratic experience that the right to a jury in criminal trials is the only right 
expressly included twice in the Constitution‖216—and as most states still 
understand it today.217 
                                                 
214 See Woodson, 428 U.S. at 289–93; McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. at 200 nn. 10, 11; see 
also Green, supra note 17, at 421–25. 
215 Because I admit that Hurst can be read more than one way, I understand why my respected 
colleague in dissent views Hurst as simply an application of Ring, and as a case-specific ruling 
that a jury must make all findings necessary to make a defendant eligible for the death penalty.   
216 See Kleinstuber, supra note 205, at 329; see also THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE para. 
3 (U.S. 1776) (listing among the reasons for separation from England:  ―For depriving us in 
many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.‖); Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine 
(1789) (―I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government 
can be held to the principles of its constitution.‖); THOMAS JEFFERSON,