Jim Craig interviewed by AP about the Death Penalty in Miss.
Gerald James Holland’s attack on the constitutionality of Mississippi’s death penalty law appears to be flying under the radar.
The attorney general’s office is confident that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will find Holland was legally re-sentenced to death under Mississippi law.
But Holland’s lawyers believe the New Orleans appeals court will find fault with a decades-old law that allows a jury unfamiliar with the details of a crime — as they claim occurred during Holland’s re-sentencing — to decide a death sentence.
In Mississippi, capital murder cases require two jury trials — one to decide guilt or innocence, and another to determine a life sentence or death.
“We were pleased with our argument and with the way the court received our argument,” Atty. Gen. Jim Hood told The Associated Press in an e-mail.
Jim Craig, a Jackson attorney and blogger who has handled dozens of death penalty appeals, said Mississippi jurors in death penalty cases weigh aggravating factors against mitigating factors to choose between life without parole and the death penalty.
“When the state reintroduced details about the crime as aggravating facts in Gerald Holland’s sentencing case, simple fairness demanded that Mr. Holland have the opportunity to rebut those facts,” Craig said.
He said while a sentencing jury can’t undo a conviction, “they could decide that the state’s narrative of the crime wasn’t totally true, and that would have affected their sentencing decision.”
AP
6/22/9
Magnolia Tribune
