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Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Johnson V. Kelley, Bruce Green
Lethal Injection Chaos Post-Baze, Deborah W. Denno
Lethal Injection Chaos Post-Baze, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
In 2008, with Baze v. Rees, the Supreme Court broke decades of silence regarding state execution methods to declare Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol constitutional, yet the opinion itself did not offer much guidance. In the six years after Baze, legal challenges to lethal injection soared as states scrambled to quell litigation by modifying their lethal injection protocols. My unprecedented study of over 300 cases citing Baze reveals that such modifications have occurred with alarming frequency. Moreover, even as states purportedly rely on the Baze opinion, they have changed their lethal injection protocols in inconsistent ways that bear little …
What Real-World Criminal Cases Tell Us About Genetics Evidence, Deborah W. Denno
What Real-World Criminal Cases Tell Us About Genetics Evidence, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
This Article, which is part of a symposium on "Law and Ethics at the Frontier of Genetic Technology," examines an unprecedented experimental study published in Science. The Science study indicated that psychopathic criminal offenders were more likely to receive lighter sentences if a judge was aware of genetic and neurobiological explanations for the offender’s psychopathy. This Article contends that the study’s conclusions derive from substantial flaws in the study’s design and methodology. The hypothetical case upon which the study is based captures just one narrow and unrepresentative component of how genetic and neurobiological information operates, and the study suffers from …
Combat Veterans, Mental Health Issues, And The Death Penalty: Addressing The Impact Of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder And Traumatic Brain Injury, Anthony E. Giardino
Combat Veterans, Mental Health Issues, And The Death Penalty: Addressing The Impact Of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder And Traumatic Brain Injury, Anthony E. Giardino
Fordham Law Review
More than 1.5 million Americans have participated in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past seven years. Some of these veterans have subsequently committed capital crimes and found themselves in our nation’s criminal justice system. This Essay argues that combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury at the time of their offenses should not be subject to the death penalty. Offering mitigating evidence regarding military training, post-traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury presents one means that combat veterans may use to argue for their lives during the sentencing phase of their trials. Alternatively, …
Revisiting The Legal Link Between Genetics And Crime, Deborah W. Denno
Revisiting The Legal Link Between Genetics And Crime, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
Unwarranted constraints on the admissibility of genetics evidence in death penalty cases can undercut some defendants' efforts to fight their executions. For example, genetics evidence can help validate some traditionally accepted mitigating factors (such as certain psychiatric or behavioral disorders) that can otherwise be difficult for defendants to prove. By imposing unreasonable limitations on genetics arguments, the criminal justice system may be undermining the very principles and progressive thinking the cap on genetics evidence was originally intended to achieve. Part II of this article briefly reviews the facts and legal arguments in Mobley v. State. Part III addresses the primary …
Rare & Inconsistent: The Death Penalty For Women, Victor L. Streib
Rare & Inconsistent: The Death Penalty For Women, Victor L. Streib
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Previous studies of the national landscape around the death penalty for women have identified and analyzed past themes and issues.22 This Article brings the analysis current through 2005, beginning with a reprise of the conversations about gender bias and disparity in the death penalty system. It appears that female offenders have always been treated differently from male offenders in the death penalty system, sometimes for reasons that are easily justifiable but too often simply because of sex bias. The next section of this Article explores the current death penalty era, identifying those women who have been sentenced to death, those …
Plea Bargaining In The Shadow Of Death, Joseph L. Hoffmann, Marcy L. Kahn, Steven W. Fisher
Plea Bargaining In The Shadow Of Death, Joseph L. Hoffmann, Marcy L. Kahn, Steven W. Fisher
Fordham Law Review
No abstract provided.
Human Rights And Human Wrongs: Is The United States Death Penalty System Inconsistent With International Human Rights Law, Warren Allmand, Stephen B. Bright, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Dorean Marguerite Koenig, William A. Schabas, W. L. Seriti
Human Rights And Human Wrongs: Is The United States Death Penalty System Inconsistent With International Human Rights Law, Warren Allmand, Stephen B. Bright, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Dorean Marguerite Koenig, William A. Schabas, W. L. Seriti
Fordham Law Review
No abstract provided.
A District Attorney's Decision Whether To Seek The Death Penalty: Toward An Improved Process, Jonathan Demay
A District Attorney's Decision Whether To Seek The Death Penalty: Toward An Improved Process, Jonathan Demay
Fordham Urban Law Journal
The most important variable affecting whether a defendant will be subject to the death penalty is often the particular ideology of the district attorney of a respective county. More subtle forms of arbitrariness, such as bias based upon race, gender and class, also pervade the process. Arguing that the dangers inherent in the present situation justify the imposition of controls over the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in the decision whether to seek the death penalty, Part I presents the nature and scope of prosecutorial discretion judicial review of that discretion and the influence that individual prosecutors can have in the …
Prosecutorial Discretion And The Death Penalty: Creating A Committee To Decide Whether To Seek The Death Penalty, John A. Horowitz
Prosecutorial Discretion And The Death Penalty: Creating A Committee To Decide Whether To Seek The Death Penalty, John A. Horowitz
Fordham Law Review
No abstract provided.
Constitution Notwithstanding: The Political Illegitimacy Of The Death Penalty In American Democracy, Stephen H. Jupiter
Constitution Notwithstanding: The Political Illegitimacy Of The Death Penalty In American Democracy, Stephen H. Jupiter
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This Comment argues that the death penalty is inconsistent with underlying principles of American democracy and is thus illegitimate as a matter of political philosophy, despite its conceded constitutionality. It analyzes the Supreme Court's idiosyncratic treatment of challenges to capital punishment on grounds of due process, equal protection and cruel and unusual punishment, demonstrating the unreliability of such challenges. It examines in detail the death penalty's political implications for the American system of democracy and why those implications render capital punishment illegitimate in our society. It discusses the role of the political process in the abolition of the death penalty. …
Are Executions In New York Inevitable?, Ronald J. Tabak
Are Executions In New York Inevitable?, Ronald J. Tabak
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This article is an edited trascription of a program considering whether executions in New York State are inevitable. Shortly after the program a law was enacted to this effect, however, Mr. Tabak argues that the law is so badly flawed that it may not survive judicial scrutiny. Present on the panel were Barbara Paul Robinson, John Cardinal O'Connor, Dean John Feerick, Archibald Murray, Thomas McDermott, Lee Grant, Cessie Alfonso and George Kendall.
Testing Penry And Its Progeny , Deborah W. Denno
Testing Penry And Its Progeny , Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
In Penry v. Lynaugh, the United States Supreme Court held that the Texas death penalty statute was applied unconstitutionally because the trial court gave no instructions allowing the jury to “consider and give effect to” the defendant's mitigating evidence of organic brain damage, moderate retardation, and disadvantaged background. The Court considered these mitigating factors relevant because of society's steadfast belief in the lesser culpability of defendants whose criminal acts are due to a disadvantaged background, or to emotional and mental disorders. The jury must have full consideration of such evidence in order to give its “reasoned moral response” to the …
Politics And The Death Penalty: Can Rational Discourse And Due Process Survive The Perceived Political Pressure?, Norman Redlich
Politics And The Death Penalty: Can Rational Discourse And Due Process Survive The Perceived Political Pressure?, Norman Redlich
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This article is a transcript from a program sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities entitled, “Politics and the Death Penalty: Can Rational Discourse and Due Process Survive the Perceived Political Pressure?” In it, Norman Redlich, former Dean of New York University Law School, James Coleman, Shabata Sundiata Waglini, Attorney General Ernest Preate, Jr., Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of the Alabama Capital Representation Resource Center, journalist Nat Hentoff, New York State Assemblywoman Susan John, and Chief Justice Exum of the North Carolina Supreme Court discuss the issue of the death penalty in America. Redlich discusses …
Lethal Fiction: The Meaning Of "Counsel" In The Sixth Amendment , Bruce A. Green
Lethal Fiction: The Meaning Of "Counsel" In The Sixth Amendment , Bruce A. Green
Faculty Scholarship
Charles Bell, Donald Paradis, and Shirley Tyler were tried in different states for murder. Each was convicted and sentenced to death. Charles Bell was represented at trial by a recent law school graduate who had never before tried a criminal case to completion. Donald Paradis's lawyer had passed the bar exam six months earlier, had never previously represented a criminal accused, and had not elected courses in criminal law, criminal procedure, or trial advocacy while in law school. Shirley Tyler's trial lawyer was also a member of the bar for only a few months. He had defended one previous assault …
The Constitution And Capital Sentencing: Pursuing Justice And Equality, Scott W. Howe
The Constitution And Capital Sentencing: Pursuing Justice And Equality, Scott W. Howe
Fordham Law Review
Equal Justice and The Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis. By David C. Baldus, George Woodworth and Charles Pulaski, Jr. Boston: Northeastern University Press. 1990. Pp. Vii, 689. $65.00
"Death Is Different" And Other Twists Of Fate, Deborah W. Denno
"Death Is Different" And Other Twists Of Fate, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
Professor Welsh White's book, The Death Penalty in the Nineties, reviews those United States Supreme Court decisions and developments that have occurred in the four years since the publication of his earlier book, The Death Penalty in the Eighties. In The Nineties, White claims that these recent developments, which have significantly limited capital defendants' habeas corpus appeals, are likely to increase both the rate and the geographical reach of executions which, in the past, have occurred mostly in the South. After discussing some of the analytical and methodological shortcomings of The Nineties, this review will focus on The Nineties' most …