This can be addressed by simply raising the bar for delivering such a sentence however. “Reasonable doubt” is a moderately high precision bar. It’s intentionally not higher.
Secondly, the more serious a crime is, the less likely that jurors are willing to let the accused off on a "technicality". Even if they are told they need to judge to a higher standard, their inclination is to judge to a lesser one and this will subconsciously influence their weighing of the evidence.
That’s an arbitrary assertion you can’t possibly defend.
I’m not arguing the defendant is not found guilty. I’m arguing the defendant is not sentenced to death specifically.
However high we put this reasonable doubt, it is bound to be pretty arbitrary, and when you have an arbitrary marker, biases are quick to step in. The supreme court of WA found this arbitrariness to cause racial bias in who gets sentenced to death in the state. And this racial bias was deemed unconstitutional in the state, so the death penalty was abolished in 2018.
Interestingly the bias was actually found and published in a regression analysis study which the justices used when backing their ruling.
The bill Inslee signed was merely a removing of this punishment (as other unconstitutional laws) from the legal code.
So, no, this cannot simply be addressed by simply raising the bar, that is unless you find a way to remove biases from jurors, or otherwise find an objective framework in a messy world, or else you risk having a punishment which discriminates against racial lines, which is unconstitutional.
Short of that? Nah, let's err on the side of caution and not go around executing potentially innocent people, please.
Yes I recognize the post above me used the term “reasonable doubt”.
It’s ok if a criminal can avoid the death penalty by blatantly refusing to confess in light of obviously incriminating evidence.
They'll look at the video and be like "Yeah he's wearing Carhartt. It's him. He wears it" or whatever. And some other equally clueless nitwit will convince himself it wasn't me because I have 3 blue items and the killer had a red keychain.
Essentially, it is crucial to me to prevent the state from exercising power over me because the agents of the state are frequently morons. And there's nothing worse than morons with power over you since you cannot reason them out of idiocy.
Regardless of jury instructions, I think what you normally get in practice is “beyond the point at which you are convinced the accused should be treated as guilty”.