In a country so fond of the death penalty, this is more a procedural issue.
A matter of judicial economy, one might say.
Making it a substantive issue is perilous. The Japanese student looking for the Halloween party in Louisiana and the drunken Scots tourist in Texas did not "need killin'."
We just have to draw the line somewhere. The Japanese student was probably OK, but drunken Scots tourists are capable of any enormity. Just look at the history of northern England.
Some of us are a bit reluctant to submit the question to a jury of one, and a jury of 12 is only a marginal improvement.
Arizona originated the recent Supremes opinion on jury trial... and I shudder to think of the result. The dividing line under state law is whether the murder was *exceptionally* cruel, heinious or depraved. (At that, the State supremes had to rule that the fact that the murder was "senseless" wasn't enough, as one judge had ruled. Hard to see a "sensible" murder, unless it was for profit, and for profit also carries the death penalty). With a judge there was at least a chance (repeat, a chance) that he or she had seen a load of murder trials and had the inklings of a perspective. With a jury, every murder is going to be the most cruel one they've ever seen.
Of course, I deal myself out of the question by opposing the death penalty. I don't oppose self-defense, but the use of deadly force needs some bright lines around it and there is a consistent tendency on this list to blur them.
Steve Russell
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