Why don’t we have jury sentencing in non-capital criminal cases?
The jury would also need to be informed of the law, the mandatory-minimum sentences and the “going rate†of similar crimes in that jurisdiction. More often than not (and I am assuming a jurisdiction that does not have strict sentencing guidelines) the judge takes only the facts of the case into account, but also personal history, the wishes of the victim and the severity of the offense into account. These are not factual determinations, which are properly left to the jury.
