that they adopted jury sentencing. Both reforms may have been due to a mistrust of unelected judges. During the ten years of the Republic of Texas, judges determined sentences. The change to jury determination of the penalty was brought about by one of the first laws passed by the first legislature of the State of Texas in 1846, which empowered the jury to sentence the defendant in all criminal cases except capital cases and cases for which punishment was fixed by law. Indiana, Illinois, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia adopted jury sentencing later in the 19th century. Decline of jury sentencing The 1895 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Sparf v. United States reflected growing concern that letting juries decide whether or how the law should be applied in particular cases could be detrimental to the rule of law. By 1910, the role of juries in determining penalties was being eroded by the professionalization of sentencing, as many states passed laws that created parole and probation systems. These systems were based on a consequentialist philosophy that it would be more useful for society to focus on finding ways to prevent future crime than on fixing blame for crime that had occurred in the past. Criminal behavior was viewed as the result of such factors as heredity, social circumstances, random breeding, and Darwinian struggle, rather than an abuse of divinely-granted free will. Psychology and sociology would determine the causes of crime and what social reforms and treatment programs would correct them. Probation officers gathered and analyzed information about the defendant's character and prepared a presentence report that served as the basis for the ultimate sentence. Probation provided opportunities for treatment in the community for juveniles and adults. In the prison system, parole commissioners, trained in penology and insulated from political pressures, determined when prisoners had been rehabilitated and could be reintegrated into society. The process of preparing a presentence report, which takes weeks, only begins after the defendant is convicted, since if he/she were to be acquitted, the effort that went into preparing the report would be wasted. It would, therefore, not be possible for juries to sentence the defendant at the time of conviction, if the jury needed to rely on a presentence report in making its sentencing decision; rather, the jury would need to be broken up and reassembled later, which could be unworkable if the delay between verdict and