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| Court rejects death row inmate's sentencing request |
| By Reno Gazette-Journal |
| Published: 09/10/2003 |
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The Nevada Supreme Court on has rejected a death row inmate's request for a new sentencing hearing, saying when he asked a judge to hear his case, he knew that judges also would decide whether he would be executed. Daryl Mack had claimed his constitutional rights were violated when a three-judge panel sentenced him to death. In a unanimous decision by the full court, the justices said they found no merit in Mack's appeal, which he brought after he was convicted of killing Betty Jane May in her southwest Reno home in 1988. 'We conclude that Mack validly waived his right to have his sentence determined by a jury and that the three-judge panel's determination of his sentence was constitutional,' the justices wrote in the ruling. The ruling is the latest of many in state and federal court following last year's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court stating that juries, not judges, must decide capital cases. While prosecutors were pleased with the ruling, John Petty, chief appellate deputy with the Washoe County Public Defender's Office, said he was surprised and disappointed. 'At the time he waived his right he had no choice,' Petty said of Mack. The way the law was written, a person who requested a bench trial could not, if convicted, ask for a jury to decide the sentence if the death penalty was sought, he said. Washoe District Judge James W. Hardesty convicted Mack on April 2, 2002, of killing May, a 55-year-old divorced mother. Mack had been indicted on murder charges in 2001 after DNA evidence linked him to the slaying of May, who had been sexually assaulted and strangled. In May, a three-judge panel sentenced Mack to death. But in June 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a person has a Sixth Amendment right to have a jury decide a death sentence. Some say Mack knew of his option for a jury trial and chose otherwise. Mack was not among the 13 death row inmates affected by last week's ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the U.S. Supreme Court decision on juries applies retroactively. Mack did not qualify because his sentence had not yet been affirmed on direct appeal by the Nevada Supreme Court. |
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