noncapital

Experts said an extension of today's decision to noncapital cases was unlikely.

In noncapital cases, he had no such absolute right.

Generally, they have been stricter than those given defendants in noncapital cases.

We passed this year a judge sentencing bill for noncapital cases with a review procedure.

And that, he says, does not count the effects on noncapital cases caused by all the death penalty litigation.

Juries, properly instructed, not judges, decide whether the murder is capital or noncapital.

Mississippi is among a handful of states that provide no money for the defense of the indigent in noncapital cases.

Mr. Skakel was charged with noncapital murder a quarter century after the crime.

In noncapital homicide cases, city officials have no mechanism for determining whether an appointed lawyer is providing adequate representation.

"In noncapital cases, indigent defendants get anywhere from an A to a C defense.

Until recently, Federal and state law authorized pretrial detention in noncapital cases only to assure a defendant's appearance at trial.

General Peterson ordered the court-martial to proceed on a noncapital basis, meaning that the death penalty would not be sought.

While defense lawyers in a noncapital case might limit appeals to the strongest points, they generally challenge all possible issues in death penalty cases.

The defendant in Harmelin directly asked the Court to extend the reach of that analysis to noncapital cases such as his.

Nor did the Eighth Amendment require a sentencing court to consider mitigating factors in noncapital cases.

Under the Eighth Amendment, a narrow proportionality principle applies to noncapital sentences.

The families and loved ones of the other thousands of victims see their cases disposed of as ordinary, noncapital murders.

But the federal guidelines may suffer from a similar constitutional vulnerability if the court decides the principle in the Ring decision applies to noncapital sentences.

Prosecutors in death cases get 20 peremptory challenges - striking potential jurors for no stated reason - instead of the 7 in a noncapital case.

The opinion nominally accepted the idea that some noncapital sentence, somewhere, might be so disproportionate as to be unconstitutional.

Justice O'Hern said the majority opinion created a noncapital class of murder that appeared to be already covered by the law dealing with aggravated assault.

But it would be a mockery of our system of due process to afford capital defendants fewer rights than noncapital defendants.

By the very nature of the gravity of the case, defense lawyers and prosecutors spend far more time on a capital case than a noncapital one.

When lawyers are hired to defend wealthier clients, they routinely charge $50,000 for a capital case, more than twice their usual fees for noncapital defense.

Justice Stevens explained that a proportionality principle for noncapital sentences was compatible with the Eighth Amendment.