Prosecutors sometimes ask higher courts to reinstate capital sentences after lower courts vacate convictions, creating a legal posture that treats vacatur as a temporary hurdle rather than final correction. That practice leaves people released on bail while a state continues to seek the death penalty and puts families, judges, and appellate bodies in fraught positions.
— This reframes post‑conviction practice as an active prosecutorial strategy with implications for bail policy, the death penalty's finality, and checks on prosecutorial power.
Richard A. Webster
2025.12.03
100% relevant
Judge Alvin Sharp vacated Jimmie Duncan’s 1998 conviction and granted bail; prosecutors have now asked the Louisiana Supreme Court to reinstate his death sentence.
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