Mills v. Maryland

Petitioner seeks review of a decision of Maryland’s highest court which construes that State’s capital sentencing scheme in a manner that preserves its constitutionality but which may not have been evident at all to the jury charged with the sentencing function in this case. Because, we have no reason to believe that the jury also arrived at this “saving” construction, we must vacate the sentence of death and remand the case for resentencing.

I

Petitioner Ralph Mills was tried by a state-court jury and convicted of the first-degree murder of his cellmate in the Maryland Correctional Institution…