Shafer v. South Carolina

This case concerns the right of a defendant in a capital case to inform the jury that, under the governing state law, he would not be eligible for parole in the event that the jury sentences him to life imprisonment. In Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994), this Court held that where a capital defendant’s future dangerousness is at issue, and the only sentencing alternative to death available to the jury is life imprisonment without possibility of parole, due process entitles the defendant “to inform the jury of [his] parole ineligibility, either by a jury instruction or in…