HB 7101 - Sentencing for Capital Felonies Summary

• Requires prosecutors to give notice within 45 days after arraignment if seeking the death penalty, specifying aggravating factors they intend to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

• Changes jury sentencing from advisory to determinative: juries must unanimously find at least one aggravating factor exists to make a defendant eligible for death, and at least 10 jurors must recommend death for that sentence to be imposed.

• Mandates that if a jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating factor, they must make a recommendation between life imprisonment without parole or death based on weighing aggravating factors against mitigating circumstances.

• Requires courts to impose life imprisonment without parole if fewer than 10 jurors support a death sentence or if the court fails to issue a written death sentence order within 30 days after judgment.

• Applies the same jury-determination procedures to capital drug trafficking felonies and sexual battery convictions involving victims under 12 years old.