People v. LaValle

R.S. Smith, J. (dissenting).

The Court today renders New York’s death penalty statute unenforceable on the ground that *134the statute fails to afford death penalty defendants a newly discovered constitutional right: the right to a penalty phase trial before a jury that is told, in advance, that a hung jury guarantees the same sentence that would result from a verdict of life imprisonment. The existence of such a right finds no support in precedent, and none in logic except on the premise that death penalty defendants are constitutionally entitled to every procedural advantage the human mind can…