“Asking them to decide between life or death makes no sense, as it is a determination of law.”
The law is us, not anything or anyone else. We the People decide our fate by the jury system. It is our responsibility as citizens. Judges are people too, citizens too, why cower from our responsibilities and toss it to them.
Our system of government is to allow us to have the power of such decisions so that our fellow citizens in government do not commit acts of tyranny against us.
We have failed to teach civics in school, but our kids know how to put on condoms and sodomize each other.
It’s more complicated.
There are several important cases about the sentencing phase, with perhaps the most current being Ring v. Arizona (2002), in which the SCOTUS decided that the jury finds guilt or innocence, *and* if aggravating factors exist.
But, according to a concurring opinion by justice Scalia:
“What today’s decision says is that the jury must find the existence of the fact that an aggravating factor existed. Those States that leave the ultimate life-or-death decision to the judge may continue to do so — by requiring a prior jury finding of aggravating factor in the sentencing phase or, more simply, by placing the aggravating-factor determination (where it logically belongs anyway) in the guilt phase.”
This pretty well says what I said, that ultimately, it should be a judge who decides life or death, after a jury has found guilt, and aggravating circumstances. But they do not need to make the final pronouncement.