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Criminal Procedure

2014

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Articles 31 - 60 of 580

Full-Text Articles in Law

Every Juror Wants A Story: Narrative Relevance, Third Party Guilt And The Right To Present A Defense, John H. Blume, Sheri L. Johnson, Emily C. Paavola Dec 2014

Every Juror Wants A Story: Narrative Relevance, Third Party Guilt And The Right To Present A Defense, John H. Blume, Sheri L. Johnson, Emily C. Paavola

Sheri Lynn Johnson

On occasion, criminal defendants hope to convince a jury that the state has not met its burden of proving them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by offering evidence that someone else (a third party) committed the crime. Currently, state and federal courts assess the admissibility of evidence of third-party guilt using a variety of standards. In general, however, there are two basic approaches. Many state courts require a defendant to proffer evidence of some sort of direct link or connection between a specific third-party and the crime. A second group of state courts, as well as federal courts, admit evidence …


Victim Gender And The Death Penalty, Caisa Elizabeth Royer, Amelia Courtney Hritz, Valerie P. Hans, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson Dec 2014

Victim Gender And The Death Penalty, Caisa Elizabeth Royer, Amelia Courtney Hritz, Valerie P. Hans, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

Previous research suggests that cases involving female victims are more likely to result in death sentences. The current study examines possible reasons for this relationship using capital punishment data from the state of Delaware. Death was sought much more for murders of either male or female white victims compared to murders of black male victims. Analyzing capital sentencing hearings in Delaware from 1977-2007 decided by judges or juries, we found that both characteristics of the victims and characteristics of the murders differentiated male and female victim cases. The presence of sexual victimization, the method of killing, the relationship between the …


Post-Mccleskey Racial Discrimination Claims In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson Dec 2014

Post-Mccleskey Racial Discrimination Claims In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

In federal habeas corpus proceedings, Earl Matthews, an African American, South Carolina death row inmate, alleged that his death sentence was the result of invidious racial discrimination that violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To support his contention, Matthews presented statistical evidence showing that in Charleston County, where a jury convicted him and sentenced him to death, the prosecutor was far more likely to seek a death sentence for a Black defendant accused of killing a white person than for any other racial combination of victims and defendants, and also that such a Black defendant was more …


Race And Recalcitrance: The Miller-El Remands, Sheri Johnson Dec 2014

Race And Recalcitrance: The Miller-El Remands, Sheri Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

In Batson v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor may not peremptorily challenge a juror based upon his or her race. Although Baston was decided more than twenty years ago, some lower courts still resist its command. Three recent cases provide particularly egregious examples of that resistance. The Fifth Circuit refused the Supreme Court's instruction in Miller-El v. Cockrell, necessitating a second grant of certiorari in Miller-El v. Dretke. The court then reversed and remanded four lower court cases for reconsideration in light of Miller-El, but in two cases the lower courts have thus …


Future Dangerousness In Capital Cases: Always "At Issue", John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson Dec 2014

Future Dangerousness In Capital Cases: Always "At Issue", John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

Under Simmons v. South Carolina, a capital defendant who, if not sentenced to death, will remain in prison with no chance of parole is constitutionally entitled to an instruction informing the jury of the fact, but only if the prosecution engages in conduct that places the defendant's future dangerousness "at issue." Based on data collected from interviews with South Carolina capital jurors, Professors Blume, Garvey and Johnson argue that future dangerousness is on the minds of most capital jurors, and is thus "at issue" in virtually all capital trials, regardless of the prosecution's conduct. Accordingly, the authors argue that the …


Black Innocence And The White Jury, Sheri Johnson Dec 2014

Black Innocence And The White Jury, Sheri Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

Racial prejudice has come under increasingly close scrutiny during the past thirty years, yet its influence on the decisionmaking of criminal juries remains largely hidden from judicial and critical examination. In this Article, Professor Johnson takes a close look at this neglected area. She first sets forth a large body of social science research that reveals a widespread tendency among whites to convict black defendants in instances in which white defendants would be acquitted. Next, she argues that none of the existing techniques for eliminating the influence of racial bias on criminal trials adequately protects minority-race defendants. She contends that …


Cross-Racial Identification Errors In Criminal Cases, Sheri Johnson Dec 2014

Cross-Racial Identification Errors In Criminal Cases, Sheri Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

No abstract provided.


Specific Agreements About Race: A Response To Professor Sunstein, Sheri Johnson Dec 2014

Specific Agreements About Race: A Response To Professor Sunstein, Sheri Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

No abstract provided.


Killing The Non-Willing: Atkins, The Volitionally Incapacitated, And The Death Penalty, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson Dec 2014

Killing The Non-Willing: Atkins, The Volitionally Incapacitated, And The Death Penalty, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

Jamie Wilson, nineteen years old and severely mentally ill, walked into a school cafeteria and started shooting. Two children died, and Jamie was charged with two counts of capital murder. Because he admitted his guilt, the only issue at his trial was the appropriate punishment. The trial judge assigned to his case, after hearing expert testimony on his mental state, found that mental illness rendered Jamie unable to conform his conduct to the requirements of law at the time of the crime—not impaired by his mental illness in his ability to control his behavior, but unable to control his behavior. …


Unconscious Racism And The Criminal Law, Sheri Johnson Dec 2014

Unconscious Racism And The Criminal Law, Sheri Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

No abstract provided.


Race And The Decision To Detain A Suspect, Sheri Johnson Dec 2014

Race And The Decision To Detain A Suspect, Sheri Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

No abstract provided.


Does Unconscious Racial Bias Affect Trial Judges?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Sheri Johnson, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie Dec 2014

Does Unconscious Racial Bias Affect Trial Judges?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Sheri Johnson, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie

Sheri Lynn Johnson

Race matters in the criminal justice system. Black defendants appear to fare worse than similarly situated white defendants. Why? Implicit bias is one possibility. Researchers, using a well-known measure called the implicit association test, have found that most white Americans harbor implicit bias toward Black Americans. Do judges, who are professionally committed to egalitarian norms, hold these same implicit biases? And if so, do these biases account for racially disparate outcomes in the criminal justice system? We explored these two research questions in a multi-part study involving a large sample of trial judges drawn from around the country. Our results …


The Langugage And Culture (Not To Say Race) Of Peremptory Challenges, Sheri Lynn Johnson Dec 2014

The Langugage And Culture (Not To Say Race) Of Peremptory Challenges, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

No abstract provided.


The Color Of Truth: Race And The Assessment Of Credibility, Sheri Lynn Johnson Dec 2014

The Color Of Truth: Race And The Assessment Of Credibility, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

No abstract provided.


Probing "Life Qualification" Through Expanded Voir Dire, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, A. Brian Threlkeld Dec 2014

Probing "Life Qualification" Through Expanded Voir Dire, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, A. Brian Threlkeld

Sheri Lynn Johnson

The conventional wisdom is that most trials are won or lost in jury selection. If this is true, then in many capital cases, jury selection is literally a matter of life or death. Given these high stakes and Supreme Court case law setting out standards for voir dire in capital cases, one might expect a sophisticated and thoughtful process in which each side carefully considers which jurors would be best in the particular case. Instead, it turns out that voir dire in capital cases is woefully ineffective at the most elementary task--weeding out unqualified jurors. Empirical evidence reveals that many …


The Fourth Circuit's "Double-Edged Sword": Eviscerating The Right To Present Mitigating Evidence And Beheading The Right To The Assistance Of Counsel, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson Dec 2014

The Fourth Circuit's "Double-Edged Sword": Eviscerating The Right To Present Mitigating Evidence And Beheading The Right To The Assistance Of Counsel, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

Even before the sea change of Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court recognized not only an indigent’s right to the assistance of counsel in capital cases, but also his right to the effective assistance of counsel in capital cases. Since those auspicious beginnings, the Court has dramatically broadened the right to present mitigating evidence in the sentencing phase of a capital trial, thereby increasing the need for the guiding hand of counsel in capital sentencing. Thus, it is particularly tragic that the Fourth Circuit’s swiftly evolving approach to the prejudice prong of the ineffective assistance of counsel standard precludes capital …


Is It Wrong To Commute Death Row? Retribution, Atonement, And Mercy, Stephen P. Garvey Dec 2014

Is It Wrong To Commute Death Row? Retribution, Atonement, And Mercy, Stephen P. Garvey

Stephen P. Garvey

Is it a morally permissible exercise of mercy for a governor to commute the death sentences of everyone on a state's death row, as Governor Ryan recently did in Illinois? I distinguish three different theories of mercy. The first two theories locate mercy within a theory of punishment as retribution. The first theory treats mercy as a means by which to achieve equity. As such, this theory is not really a theory of mercy; it is instead a theory of justice. The second theory treats mercy as a genuine virtue independent of justice. In particular, mercy is understood as an …


Correcting Deadly Confusion: Responding To Jury Inquiries In Capital Cases, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Paul Marcus Dec 2014

Correcting Deadly Confusion: Responding To Jury Inquiries In Capital Cases, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Paul Marcus

Stephen P. Garvey

In Weeks v. Angelone, 528 U.S. 225 (2000), the members of the capital sentencing jury asked for clarification of the jury instructions on the essential question of whether they were required to sentence Weeks to death upon the finding of certain aggravating factors. The judge merely informed the jurors to reread the instruction. The jurors returned with a death penalty sentence. The Supreme Court held that these jurors likely understood the instructions and at most Weeks had shown a slight possibility that the jurors believed they were precluded from considering mitigating evidence. However, the results of a mock jury study …


Expert Testimony In Capital Sentencing: Juror Responses, John H. Montgomery, J. Richard Ciccone, Stephen P. Garvey, Theodore Eisenberg Dec 2014

Expert Testimony In Capital Sentencing: Juror Responses, John H. Montgomery, J. Richard Ciccone, Stephen P. Garvey, Theodore Eisenberg

Stephen P. Garvey

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Furman v. Georgia (1972), held that the death penalty is constitutional only when applied on an individualized basis. The resultant changes in the laws in death penalty states fostered the involvement of psychiatric and psychologic expert witnesses at the sentencing phase of the trial, to testify on two major issues: (1) the mitigating factor of a defendant’s abnormal mental state and (2) the aggravating factor of a defendant’s potential for future violence. This study was an exploration of the responses of capital jurors to psychiatric/psychologic expert testimony during capital sentencing. The Capital Jury Project is …


The Emotional Economy Of Capital Sentencing, Stephen P. Garvey Dec 2014

The Emotional Economy Of Capital Sentencing, Stephen P. Garvey

Stephen P. Garvey

You often hear that one reason capital jurors condemn capital defendants is that jurors don't empathize with defendants. And one reason they don't empathize is that the process of capital sentencing is rigged against empathy. Using data from the South Carolina segment of the Capital Jury Project, I try to examine the role emotion plays in capital sentencing. Without entering here all the important and necessary caveats, I find that the self-reported emotional responses jurors have toward capital defendants run the gamut from sympathy and pity at one extreme, to disgust, anger, and fear at the other. What causes these …


But Was He Sorry? The Role Of Remorse In Capital Sentencing, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells Dec 2014

But Was He Sorry? The Role Of Remorse In Capital Sentencing, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells

Stephen P. Garvey

What role does remorse really play in capital sentencing? We divide this basic question in two. First, what makes jurors come to believe a defendant is remorseful? Second, does a belief in the defendant's remorse affect the jury's final judgment of life or death? Here we present a systematic, empirical analysis that tries to answer these questions. What makes jurors think a defendant is remorseful? Among other things, we find that the more jurors think that the crime is coldblooded, calculated, and depraved and that the defendant is dangerous, the less likely they are to think the defendant is remorseful. …


Jury Responsibility In Capital Sentencing: An Empirical Study, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells Dec 2014

Jury Responsibility In Capital Sentencing: An Empirical Study, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells

Stephen P. Garvey

The law allows executioners to deny responsibility for what they have done by making it possible for them to believe they have not done it. The law treats members of capital sentencing juries quite differently. It seeks to ensure that they feel responsible for sentencing a defendant to death. This differential treatment rests on a presumed link between a capital sentencer's willingness to accept responsibility for the sentence she imposes and the accuracy and reliability of that sentence. Using interviews of 153 jurors who sat in South Carolina capital cases, this article examines empirically whether capital sentencing jurors assume responsibility …


Forecasting Life And Death: Juror Race, Religion, And Attitude Toward The Death Penalty, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells Dec 2014

Forecasting Life And Death: Juror Race, Religion, And Attitude Toward The Death Penalty, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells

Stephen P. Garvey

Determining whether race, sex, or other juror characteristics influence how capital case jurors vote is difficult. Jurors tend to vote for death in more egregious cases and for life in less egregious cases no matter what their own characteristics. And a juror's personal characteristics may get lost in the process of deliberation because the final verdict reflects the jury's will, not the individual juror's. Controlling for the facts likely to influence a juror's verdict helps to isolate the influence of a juror's personal characteristics. Examining each juror's first sentencing vote reveals her own judgment before the majority works its will. …


Death-Innocence And The Law Of Habeas Corpus, Stephen P. Garvey Dec 2014

Death-Innocence And The Law Of Habeas Corpus, Stephen P. Garvey

Stephen P. Garvey

The legal space between a sentence of death and the execution chamber is occupied by an intricate network of procedural rules. On average, it currently takes between six and seven years to traverse this space, but this interval is expected to shrink. Federal habeas corpus, an important part of this space, is studded more and more with procedural obstacles that bar the federal courts from entertaining the merits of a defendant's claims. By design, these barriers foreclose federal review in order to protect the state's interests in the finality of its criminal convictions, as well as to display healthy respect …


Virginia's Capital Jurors, Stephen P. Garvey, Paul Marcus Dec 2014

Virginia's Capital Jurors, Stephen P. Garvey, Paul Marcus

Stephen P. Garvey

Next to Texas, no state has executed more capital defendants than Virginia. Moreover, the likelihood of a death sentence actually being carried out is greater in Virginia than it is elsewhere, while the length of time between the imposition of a death sentence and its actual execution is shorter. Virginia has thus earned a reputation among members of the defense bar as being among the worst of the death penalty states. Yet insofar as these facts about Virginia's death penalty relate primarily to the behavior of state and federal appellate courts, they suggest that what makes Virginia's death penalty unique …


Future Dangerousness In Capital Cases: Always "At Issue", John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson Dec 2014

Future Dangerousness In Capital Cases: Always "At Issue", John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Stephen P. Garvey

Under Simmons v. South Carolina, a capital defendant who, if not sentenced to death, will remain in prison with no chance of parole is constitutionally entitled to an instruction informing the jury of the fact, but only if the prosecution engages in conduct that places the defendant's future dangerousness "at issue." Based on data collected from interviews with South Carolina capital jurors, Professors Blume, Garvey and Johnson argue that future dangerousness is on the minds of most capital jurors, and is thus "at issue" in virtually all capital trials, regardless of the prosecution's conduct. Accordingly, the authors argue that the …


Knockin' On Heaven's Door: Rethinking The Role Of Religion In Death Penalty Cases, Gary J. Simson, Stephen P. Garvey Dec 2014

Knockin' On Heaven's Door: Rethinking The Role Of Religion In Death Penalty Cases, Gary J. Simson, Stephen P. Garvey

Stephen P. Garvey

Religion has played a prominent role at various points of capital trials. In jury selection, peremptory challenges have been exercised against prospective jurors on the basis of their religion. At the sentencing phase, defendants have offered as mitigating evidence proof of their religiosity, and the prosecution has introduced evidence of the victim's religiosity. In closing argument, quotations from the Bible and other appeals to religion have long been common. During deliberations, jurors have engaged in group prayer and tried to sway one another with quotes from scripture. Such practices have not gone unquestioned. Rather remarkably, however, the questions have almost …


Harmless Error In Federal Habeas Corpus After Brecht V. Abrahamson, John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey Dec 2014

Harmless Error In Federal Habeas Corpus After Brecht V. Abrahamson, John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey

Stephen P. Garvey

The law of habeas corpus has changed again. This time it was the law of harmless error. Before Brecht v. Abrahamson, the courts applied the same harmless error rule on direct appeal and in federal habeas corpus. Under that rule, embraced for constitutional errors in Chapman v. California, a conviction tainted by a constitutional error susceptible to harmless error analysis could be upheld only if the state demonstrated that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. After Brecht, the venerable Chapman rule still applies to constitutional errors identified and reviewed on direct appeal, but an ostensibly "less onerous" standard …


Aggravation And Mitigation In Capital Cases: What Do Jurors Think?, Stephen P. Garvey Dec 2014

Aggravation And Mitigation In Capital Cases: What Do Jurors Think?, Stephen P. Garvey

Stephen P. Garvey

The Capital Jury Project in South Carolina interviewed jurors who sat in forty-one capital murder cases. The Project asked jurors a range of questions relating to crime, the defendant, the victim, the victim's family, the jurors' deliberations, the conduct of counsel, and background characteristics of the jurors. In this essay, Professor Stephen P. Garvey presents and examines data from the Project relating to the importance jurors attach to various aggravating and mitigating factors. The results suggest that jurors have a discernible moral compass. According to the data, jurors found especially brutal killings, killings with child victims, future dangerousness, and lack …


Lifting The Veil On Punishment, Stephen P. Garvey Dec 2014

Lifting The Veil On Punishment, Stephen P. Garvey

Stephen P. Garvey

When the state punishes a person, it treats him as it ordinarily should not. It takes away his property, throws him in prison, or otherwise interferes with his liberty. Theories of punishment try to explain why such harsh treatment is nonetheless morally permissible, if not morally obligatory. Such theories often seem to take for granted that the state in question is an upright one. Among other things, the states in which we live fail, one might reasonably believe, to distribute wealth and power fairly among their citizens. Nor are the criminal justice systems they superintend flawless, not least of which …