Ala. judges impose death though juries vote for life in prison

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By News One Staff
From News One:

An former soldier will now be sentenced to death, instead of life imprisonment for his crimes.

In the state of Alabama, judges have overturned jury decisions on capital decisions over 100 time since 1976. In 92 percent of those cases, the jury’s recommendation of life in prison was rejected in favor of the death penalty.

Last November, jurors in Lee County, Alabama, found an African-American Iraq War veteran, Courtney Lockhart, guilty of the 2008 murder of Lauren Burk, a 18-year-old college student. Jurors unanimously decided on a life sentence, but the presiding judge overruled the sentence on March 3, 2011, sentencing Lockhart to death by lethal injection.

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