In United States jurisprudence, a judicial override is when a judge overrules a jury's determination.
Use in capital cases
Only three U.S. states have allowed judicial overrides: Alabama, Delaware, and Florida. Delaware and Florida have cases in which the jury has imposed a death sentence and the judge has changed the ruling to life in prison. Alabama is unique in allowing judges to override a jury sentence of life in prison with capital punishment.
In 1995, the United States Supreme Court held, in an 8–1 decision, that the Eighth Amendment "does not require the State to define the weight the sentencing judge must give to an advisory jury verdict." The Court had been asked to impose Florida's "great weight" standard on Alabama, but Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that doing so would amount to micromanagement. The Supreme Court declined to take up a case reviewing Alabama's use of judicial overrides in 2013 and again in 2015. Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor dissented the 2013 decision to decline to rehear the issue. Justice Sotomayor suggested that the elected nature of Alabama's judges is the underlying issue, with a study showing that death sentences are imposed more in election years.