Judges struck down the state’s death penalty, commuting 11 doomed killers’ sentences to life imprisonment, notwithstanding the fact the state hasn’t actually executed anyone since 1960 except Michael Ross.
The divided, 4-3 ruling cited factors that have come up in other states to abolish the death penalty including racial and economic disparities in its use, the costs involved with appeals, the cruelty of the wait for execution and the risk of executing innocent people.