What would happen if the only punishment listed for a crime is execution, if a person is found guilty they must be put to death, but a change in the law, either by the state itself or the union that the state is a part of disallows the death penalty. What happens to the person found guilty of this crime?
It is changed to life in prison. IIRC, that is what happened to Charlie Manson when the DP was temporarily put aside in CA. Cite.
Regards,
Shodan
In the United States today, there is no crime that fits this description. Mandatory sentences of death were forbidden in Gregg v Georgia, and jury involvement in a death sentence made a necessity by Ring v Arizona.
A sentence can always be communted to a lesser penalty. You can only be resentenced to a harsher penalty, which is a more complex procedure. The only way I know to be re-sentenced is if you appeal to a higher court, which decides that the lower court correctly found guilt but improperly applied the legal penalty.
(I have a hilarious and true story about this involving some truly awful thieves tryig to steal some extremely rare books and other archive items, but I can’t find the .pdf file for the court decision. You could oh-so-tell the judges handing it down were laughing their asses while writing the decision. Does anyone recall that case?)
There have been a couple of anomalous cases where an adult was arrested for a long-ago crime that he or she committed while under 18, and the law required that the he or she be tried as a juvenile. The problem would come at sentencing, where the law prescribes that the maximum penalty is imprisonment until age 18, which this now-adult defendant long since passed.
Not sure how those have been resolved. I’ll try to find one.
Actually, consider the issue of resentencing if you appeal on an unrelated error, the appellate court agrees and sends it back for retrial, and again you’re convicted, but this time receive a harsher sentence.
Which can happen…
I’m not aware of any crime for which the only possible sentence is death. But logically, I think the person would have to be set free. Because there is a principle of law that you cannot increase the punishment for a crime retroactively. I think that it also follows that you cannot impose any punishment which was not called for in the statute. I imagine the courts would be likely to ignore this little problem, but logically I think it’s still there.
By analogy, one can imagine a statute which provides for public whipping for the crime of public intoxication. If somebody were convicted of this crime and successfully challenged their sentence on the grounds that it was cruel and unusual punishment, could their sentence be reduced to a $50 fine? I would say “no” unless that was provided for in the statute.
There is one rather archaic provision of U.S. law which includes a mandatory death penalty, Article 106 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice:
I don’t know if “time of war” is anywhere defined in U.S. law. Also, there’s prosecutorial discretion to think of–anyone “found lurking as a spy or acting as a spy” in time of war could presumably be alternatively charged under Article 106a if they’re in the military, or 18 U.S.C. 794 if they’re not, both of which allow for (but don’t require) the death penalty under specified circumstances. I doubt the U.S. will ever again crank up the general courts-martial and/or military commissions to try people under Article 106, but it’s an odd law.
What happened in Spain when the death penalty and life sentence were thrown out was that the sentences got commuted to the new ones (which IIRC is 25 years). I understand that one of the things which happens whenever the Criminal Code is updated is a review of current sentences being served; maybe not for everything, but at least for those crimes whose possible sentences have changed greatly (such as when posession of small amounts of drugs got decriminalized) - here, any new law including the CC has to say how it affects pre-existing cases.
I seem to recall reading of a situation were someone was on probation or parole from one jurisdiction (perhaps it was the US Federal Government), and one of the conditions was that they had to register as a sex offender with their jurisdiction of residence. The jurisdiction where he lived turned him away, saying that his record did not require him to register there due to local or state laws… It seems that there was a stink and they somehow registered him.
Reminds me of an old joke…
A miscreant, on trial for multiple offenses of middling seriousness, is sentenced to two years in prison; he quickly exhorts his attorney: “Appeal 'er up, doc, appeal 'er up!”
He wins only part of his appeal, and one of the verdicts is thrown out, leaving him sentenced to one year in prison: “Appeal her up, doc, appeal 'er up!”
His appeal in the state Supreme court results in a new trial, wherein he is again convicted of the remaining charges, and now receives the maximum sentence of five years in prison: “Appeal 'er back, doc, appeal 'er back!”