Jenkins v. Nebraska

Issues: (1) Whether the sentencing court violated the requirement of the Eighth and 14th Amendments that capital sentencers give meaningful consideration and effect to all mitigating evidence, when it categorically refused to consider the impact of prolonged solitary confinement and the state’s inadequate response, because it concluded that the solitary confinement was warranted; and (2) whether a capital sentencing scheme that requires a jury to find aggravating factors, but authorizes judges, rather than a jury, to make all further factual findings necessary to the imposition of a sentence of death, violates the Sixth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.