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High Court Rules Sentencing Wrongly Applied

Some 1,200 people are sentenced in federal courts each week. But U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that weighing pertinent evidence to determine the length of a sentence should fall to juries, not judges. NPR's Tony Cox talks to Jeff Fisher, one of the lawyers who helped set the precedent, Charles Hobson, an attorney with the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, and Barry Scheck, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Copyright 2005 NPR

Tony Cox
Tony Cox has built a distinguished career in broadcast journalism that spans three decades in television and radio.