Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
Criminal Procedure
Indictment & Pleading Issues
Evidence
Arrest, Search, and Investigation
Criminal Offenses
Drug Offenses
Lynch v. Arizona, 578 U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 1818 (May. 31, 2016)
Where the State put the defendant’s future dangerousness at issue and acknowledged that his only alternative sentence to death was life imprisonment without parole, the Arizona court erred by concluding that the defendant had no right to inform the jury of his parole ineligibility. Under Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994), and its progeny, 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, the Due Process Clause entitles the defendant to inform the jury of his parole ineligibility, either by a jury instruction or in arguments by counsel.