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92 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 609 (2001-2002)
Life Terms or Death Sentences: The Uneasy Relationship between Judicial Elections and Capital Punishment

handle is hein.journals/jclc92 and id is 625 raw text is: 0091-4169/02/9203-0609 THE JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINOLOGY Vol 92, Nos 3-4 Copyright 0 2003 by Northwestern Untveisity, School of Law Printed n U SA LIFE TERMS OR DEATH SENTENCES: THE UNEASY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JUDICIAL ELECTIONS AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT RICHARD R. W. BROOKS* AND STEVEN RAPHAEL I. INTRODUCTION One day Louise Harris approached her lover, Lorenzo Bo Bo McCarter, with a proposition that led to an agreement to kill her hus- band.' Harris and McCarter paid Michael Sockwell and Alex Hood one hundred dollars to carry out the gruesome killing.2 Following the killing, Harris, McCarter, Sockwell, and Hood were all convicted of capital murder in separate proceedings. In each case, a jury recom- mended life in prison without parole. Yet, in two of the four cases, the trial judge declined to follow the jury recommendations, choosing instead to sentence the defendants to death by electrocution. Differ- ent sentences following guilty verdicts on the same offense often oc- cur because the guilty/not-guilty determination affords only the crudest approximation of culpability. Through sentencing, however, mitigating and aggravating considerations can give countenance to culpability. Still, the juries in the Harris murder cases had access to these considerations when they reached the same sentence recom- Assistant Professor of Law at Northwestern University. Thanks to Stuart Banner, Leigh Bienen, Shari Diamond, Thomas Geraghty, Steve Lubet, and Gerald Rosenberg. Marcia Lehr and Christian Scott provided able and thoughtful research assistance. .. Professor, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. Thanks to Leigh Bienen and Rob MacCoun. 1 Harris's husband, a local deputy sheriff, had death benefits worth one quarter of a mil- lion dollars, which the co-conspirators allegedly planned to share. 2 As Deputy Sheriff Isaiah Harris came to a stop sign while driving to work in his 1979 Ford Thunderbird, Sockwell jumped out of the bushes holding a shotgun, pointed it at the deputy's face, and fired at close range. As a result, the lower half of the victim's face was blown off, leaving his teeth, tongue, and 'matter' from his face blown across the car. Harris v. State, 632 So. 2d 503, 508 (Ala. Crim. App. 1992), aff'd sub nom.Ex Parte Harris, 632 So. 2d 543 (Ala. 1993), aff'd sub nom. Harris v. Alabama, 513 U.S. 504 (1995) (Stevens, J., dis- senting) (affirming the Alabama Supreme Court decision sustaining the defendant's convic- tion and death sentence).