Law Commons^™

Jones, Lackey, And Teague, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

In a recent, high-profile ruling, a federal court finally recognized that a substantial delay in executing a death row inmate violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments. Courts have repeatedly rejected these so-called “Lackey claims,” making the federal court’s decision in Jones v. Chappell all the more important. And yet it was deeply flawed. This paper focuses on one of the major flaws in the Jones decision that largely escaped attention: the application of the non-retroactivity rule from Teague v. Lane. By comprehensively addressing the merits of the Teague bar as applied to Lackey claims, and making …

Executing On An Empty Tank: Protecting The Supply Of Lethal Injection Drugs From Public Records Requests, Ira K. Rushing

Ira K Rushing

With the US Supreme Court holding the death penalty and lethal injection as Constitutional, there has been a new strategy for condemned prisoners. Using public information requests to discover the identities of the suppliers of lethal injection drugs and others in ancillary roles, the media has broad range to publish this information. This has led to many suppliers and compounding pharmacies to withhold supplies of the drugs to states using them in executions. This paper lays out a history of the death penalty in Mississippi that has gotten us to this point. It then attempts to provide persuasive arguments on …

Unreasonable Doubt: Warren Hill, Aedpa, And The Unconstitutionality Of Georgia's Reasonable Doubt Standard, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Georgia’s “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard for determining intellectual disability has led to an absurd—and arbitrary—result. A Georgia state court held that defendant Warren Hill was intellectually disabled, yet still sentenced Hill to death. Seven experts—and the court—deemed Hill disabled under a preponderance of the evidence standard. He remains on death row, however, because Georgia’s “preposterous burden of proof” requires that intellectual disability be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, a standard experts have said is nearly impossible to satisfy. It “effectively limits the constitutional right protected in Atkins,” and creates a conditional, not categorical, ban.

An Empirical Evaluation Of The Connecticut Death Penalty System Since 1973: Are There Unlawful Racial, Gender, And Geographic Disparities?, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

This article analyzes the 205 death-eligible murders leading to homicide convictions in Connecticut from 1973–2007 to determine if discriminatory and arbitrary factors influenced capital outcomes. A regression analysis controlling for an array of legitimate factors relevant to the crime, defendant, and victim provides overwhelming evidence that minority defendants who kill white victims are capitally charged at substantially higher rates than minority defendants who kill minorities, that geography influences both capital charging and sentencing decisions (with the location of a crime in Waterbury being the single most potent influence on which death-eligible cases will lead to a sentence of death), and …

The Homicide Survivors’ Fairness-For-Victims Manifesto, Lester Jackson

LESTER JACKSON

Murderer advocates place a far greater value on the lives of the most savage murderers than on the lives of their victims. Let them deny it; their words and deeds conclusively give the lie to that denial. The critical question is this: Whose concept of justice is going to prevail? The concept of a small but vocal well-financed minority with influence and power out of all proportion to its numbers, or that of the large but poorly financed and disorganized majority. In recent decades, the former have dominated. Tragically, compared to media-dominant murderer advocates, victims have been virtually voiceless. Yes, …

Hall V. Florida: The Death Of Georgia's Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Standard, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Welcome: We’re Glad Georgia is On Your Mind.

Georgia is on many minds as Warren Hill prepares for a state court hearing to once again begin the process of trying to show that he is intellectually disabled. As Warren Hill continues to flirt with death, one must ask, is Georgia really going to execute someone that nine experts and a lower court twice found to be mentally retarded? The answer is yes, and the Georgia courts do not understand why we are scratching our heads. The answer is simple: executing an intellectually disabled man is akin to strapping a ten-year …

Hall V. Florida: The Death Of Georgia’S Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Standard, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.

Amicus Brief -- Freddie Lee Hall V. State Of Florida, Adam Lamparello, Charles Maclean

Adam Lamparello

IQ cutoffs violate the Constitution. In Atkins v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court recognized three distinct components to intellectual disability: (1) an intelligence quotient; (2) deficits in adaptive functioning; and (3) onset prior to eighteen. The Florida Supreme Court interpreted Fla. Stat. § 921.137(1) to bar evidence of adaptive disability and early onset if a defendant scored above a 70 on an IQ test. As Justice Perry recognized in his partial dissent, that interpretation will lead to the execution of a retarded man. The Amicus brief argues that the Florida Supreme Court's decision should be reversed because it prohibits …

An Anachronism Too Discordant To Be Suffered: A Comparative Study Of Parliamentary And Presidential Approaches To Regulation Of The Death Penalty, Derek R. Verhagen

Derek R VerHagen

It is well-documented that the United States remains the only western democracy to retain the death penalty and finds itself ranked among the world's leading human rights violators in executions per year. However, prior to the Gregg v. Georgia decision in 1976, ending America's first and only moratorium on capital punishment, the U.S. was well in line with the rest of the civilized world in its approach to the death penalty. This Note argues that America's return to the death penalty is based primarily on the differences between classic parliamentary approaches to regulation and that of the American presidential system. …

Victim Impact Evidence: An Analysis On The Effect Of Victim Impact Evidence On The Sentencing Stage In Death-Penalty Cases And Potential Reforms, Kyle W. Kahan

Kyle W Kahan

No abstract provided.

More Different Than Life, Less Different Than Death, William W. Berry Iii

William W Berry III

The Supreme Court has traditionally divided its application of the Eighth Amendment into two categories, capital and non-capital cases, based on the longstanding notion that “death- is-different.” In the recent case of Graham v. Florida, however, the Supreme Court applied its “evolving standards of decency” standard, heretofore reserved for capital cases, to a non-capital case in holding that the Eighth Amendment prohibited states from sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole for non-homicide crimes. The dissenting justices argued that this decision marked the end of the Court’s “death-is-different” jurisprudence. This article argues, however, that the decision instead creates the opportunity …

What's Messing With Texas Death Sentences?, David Mccord

David McCord

This article empirically examines the decline in death sentences in Texas over about the last decade.

Fact Suppression And The Subversion Of Capital Punishment: What Death Penalty Foes On The Supreme Court And In The Media Do Not Want The Public To Know, Lester --- Jackson

LESTER JACKSON

The U.S. Supreme Court and other courts, aided by the media in suppressing critical information about case facts and case law, have all but abolished capital punishment, turning what's left into a costly and agonizing farce. While pretending to superlative morality, dishonesty, especially half-truth, is central to their cause. An egregious example was Roger Coleman, widely but with knowing falsity portrayed as a choir boy executed because heartless judges impatiently refused to hear evidence of his innocence. Going further, in myriad cases, death sentences are reversed or banned when guilt is not even disputed. This is achieved by focusing upon …

In Search Of Clemency Procedures We Can Live With: What Process Is Due In Capital Clemency Proceedings After Ohio Adult Parole Authority V. Woodard?, Brian S. Clarke

Brian S. Clarke

The United States Supreme Court has denied certiorari for the final time. All state and federal appeals have been exhausted. The execution date has been set. There is only one thing that can save the death row inmate from the ultimate punishment: the proverbial call from the governor and a grant of executive clemency.

This scene, although a veritable Hollywood cliche, is being played out in prisons across America with increasing frequency. As of July 1, 1998, there were 3,474 men and women on death row in America. In 1996, with the passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty …