Court Opinion

ID: 9469392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:39:24.033991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:22.083948
License: Public Domain

RANDALL, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the panel’s disposition of the issues with respect to the alleged violation of Witherspoon v. Illinois, the requested suppression of Jordan’s confession, the jury charge on intent and the challenge to his sentence based on unchanneled jury discretion at the sentencing phase, and I therefore concur in the result.
Because the panel has correctly found that the sentencing procedure under which the death penalty was imposed constitutionally infirm, I see no need to address the questions decided by the panel concerning the constitutionality, under the ex post fac-to and due process clauses, of the Mississippi Supreme Court’s interpretation in Jackson and in this case of the now-repealed Mississippi statutes. We have remanded this case to the district court for a determination by the State of Mississippi whether to conduct a new sentencing hearing or to vacate Jordan’s death sentence and impose a lesser sentence. Any new sentencing hearing will be held under the new Mississippi statutes. In view of this disposition, there is no need to determine whether the Mississippi Supreme Court’s interpretation in Jackson and in this case of the now repealed (and wholly inapplicable) Mississippi statutes is constitutionally infirm.