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Court takes death penallyissue under submission?*rmit the making of such distinctions, oungsaid.Gazette Carson City Bureau A separate hearing — following conviction - should be provided under Nevada law before an individual can be sentenced to death, the attorney for convicted Messiah Killer Edward Leroy Smith told the Nevada Supreme Court Wednesday.The court, after hearing other arguments upholding the constitutionality of the state capital punishment statute from the Washoe County district attorney’s office, took the matter under submission.Defense Attorney Richard Young said state law, mandating an automatic sentence of death for five categories of crime, can’t pass constitutional muster because it’s inconsistent with recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that the special circumstances of a given case be taken into account.Nevada’s law makes no provision for “human frailty.” Young said - it fails to recognize the difference between, say, the cold-blooded killing of a policeman and the “low- mangle slayings of which Smith was convicted.The establishment of a post-convictkm hearing procedure, involving an inquiry into such things as the character and background of the defendant and theCommenting along the same lines. Justice David Zenoff made the point that the fact that a defendant experienced a momentary iiresistable impulse to commit the crime is not a legal defense in Nevada courts, but would be a possible mitigating defense in such a post-conviction hearing.The justices on occasion challenged both sides — such as when Young commented that it must be the responsibility of society, and not just the legislature, “to impose that ultimate penalty on another human being.“Which case said that?” commented Justice Gordon Thompson, adding “That’s really an arguable position ”When Young argued that the Nevada statute doesn’t permit guidelines as to who should die and who shouldn’t, Justice Thompson observed that the legislature assumed that authority when it established mandatory categories.These indude the killings of peace officers in the performance of their duty; contract killings; killings resulting from the use of explosives; killings by those servinga life sentence without possibility of parole;and multiple killings arising from a single% %
Newspaper Details
Reno Evening Gazette
Reno, Nevada, US
Thu, Jan 13, 1977
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Washoe C.
NV, USA 15 Feb 2021
Other Publications Near Reno, Nevada
Nevada State Journal
Reno Evening Gazette
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