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Crimes-Right Of Jury To Recommend Mercy

Michigan Law Review

In a trial for murder, under a statute which provided that if the jury found the accused guilty of murder they might recommend him or her to the mercy of the court, thus reducing the punishment from death to life imprisonment, the court instructed the jury, ''You cannot of your own free will recommend or not recommend [mercy] because you are opposed to capital punishment." Exception was taken on the grounds that this circumscribed the statutory privilege of the jury to recommend mercy. Held, the instruction was erroneous and constituted grounds for new trial. State v. Blakely (S. C. …