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866 N.E.2d 752

Baer v. State

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided May 22, 2007

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 2007-05-22

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently February 2019

1 federal appellate · 15 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 2007-05-22

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SHEPARD, Chief Justice,

¶1concurring.

¶2For the last several decades at least, Indiana law has assigned to judges the duty to decide sentences in criminal cases. Appellate court review of such trial court decisions has been highly deferential, but we have undertaken to review and revise sentences when persuaded that the trial court’s sentence is “inappropriate.”

¶3As for death penalty and life without parole cases, the legislature has now largely shifted the sentencing decision from judges and assigned it instead to juries. I am inclined to think that we should be even less ready to set aside the sentencing judgment of jurors, and that the standard we adopted during the era of judicial sen*767tencing should probably not apply to second-guess Indiana juries.

¶4The parties here have not joined this question, however, and there appears no reason to reverse the jury’s decision. Accordingly, I join in the Court’s opinion.

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