DELAWARE (USA): SUPREME COURT RE-SENTENCES ENTIRE DEATH ROW TO LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE

December 15, 2016: The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled that everyone on death row in the state will be re-sentenced to life without parole. The case is Powell v. State.
The Court today has ruled that its August 2 decision (Rauf v. State) declaring the state's death penalty sentencing statute unconstitutional, applies retroactively to the 13 prisoners who already were on death row at the time Rauf was decided, as well as to the 4 other prisoners awaiting capital retrials or resentencing hearings following the reversal of their death sentences.
According to the court's decision today, that previous decision was a "watershed procedural ruling" and should apply to those currently on death row. The state legislature could still rewrite the death penalty law to make it constitutional.
But even if they were to reinstate the law, those twelve inmates will not be put back on death row. It is highly unlikely that the legislature will reinstate the law.
The ruling came in an appeal by Derrick Powell, 29, Black, who was sentenced to death in May 2009 for the September 2009 murder of patrolman Chad Spicer during a pursuit. (Source: DPIC, cbsnews.com, 15/12/2016)