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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Merciful Capital Juror, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey
The Merciful Capital Juror, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
We examine the role of mercy in capital sentencing along three dimensions. We first explain why mercy is a philosophically problematic virtue, and second, why it presently holds an ambiguous status within constitutional doctrine. Finally, we draw on interviews with jurors who served on capital cases in order better to understand how the behavior of merciful jurors compares to the behavior of their less merciful counterparts. Among other things, we find that merciful jurors tend to be better educated and to attend religious services regularly. We also find that merciful jurors are, as one might reasonably expect, more apt to …
Explaining Death Row's Population And Racial Composition, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells
Explaining Death Row's Population And Racial Composition, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Twenty-three years of murder and death sentence data show how murder demographics help explain death row populations. Nevada and Oklahoma are the most death-prone states; Texas's death sentence rate is below the national mean. Accounting for the race of murderers establishes that black representation on death row is lower than black representation in the population of murder offenders. This disproportion results from reluctance to seek or impose death in black defendant-black victim cases, which more than offsets eagerness to seek and impose death in black defendant-white victim cases. Death sentence rates in black defendant-white victim cases far exceed those in …