Law Commons^™

An Empirical Look At Atkins V. Virginia And Its Application In Capital Cases, John Blume, Sheri Johnson, Christopher Seeds

John H. Blume

In Atkins vs. Virginia, the Supreme Court declared that evolving standards of decency and the Eighth Amendment prohibit the death penalty for individuals with intellectual disability (formerly, "mental retardation"). Both supporters and opponents of the categorical exemption, however, have criticized the Atkins opinion. The Atkins dissent, for example, urged that the decision would open the gates of litigation to a flood of frivolous claims. Another prominent criticism, heard from those more supportive of the Court's ruling, has been that the language the Court used communicating that states must "generally conform" to the clinical definitions of mental retardation is ambiguous enough …

Judicial Politics, Death Penalty Appeals, And Case Selection: An Empirical Study, John Blume, Theodore Eisenberg

John H. Blume

Several studies try to explain case outcomes based on the politics of judicial selection methods. Scholars usually hypothesize that judges selected by partisan popular elections are subject to greater political pressure in deciding cases than are other judges. No class of cases seems more amenable to such analysis than death penalty cases. No study, however, accounts both for judicial politics and case selection, the process through which cases are selected for death penalty litigation. Yet, the case selection process cannot be ignored because it yields a set of cases for adjudication that is far from a random selection of cases. …

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

John H. Blume

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. …

Crime Labs And Prison Guards: A Comment On Melendez-Diaz And Its Potential Impact On Capital Sentencing Proceedings, John Blume, Emily Paavola

John H. Blume

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant the right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Four years ago, in Crawford v. Washington, the United States Supreme Court held that this right bars the admission of testimonial hearsay statements against criminal defendants, regardless of whether or not the statements fall within an evidentiary hearsay exception. It was a decision that other courts later described as a "bombshell," a "renaissance," and "a newly shaped lens" through which to view the Confrontation Clause. The case generated an extensive amount of discussion among legal commentators. Since its …

Rick Garnett Was Quoted In The South Bend Tribune Article What Do Recent Botched Executions Mean For Death Penalty? On August 31., Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett was quoted in the South Bend Tribune article What do recent botched executions mean for death penalty? on August 31.

“As a result of this focus, some minds may change,” said Richard Garnett, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on capital punishment. “I think it’s still too soon to say if this will be the catalyst for a new abolition movement.”

Quoted In The Christian Science Monitor Article And Video, "Botched Oklahoma Execution Shakes Even Death Penalty Supporters", Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

“I don’t expect that this one incident will be in itself the straw that breaks the camel’s back and leads to the abolition of the death penalty, but clearly it was deeply troubling, and clearly a lot of people are going to be troubled by it,” says Rick Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame.

“Most Americans who support the death penalty still believe that it needs to be administered in a way that’s humane, and that’s possible, but difficult, to do,” he adds. “The conversation about what we the people are going to do will be …

Rick Garnett Was Quoted In The Cnn Article Oklahoma’S Botched Lethal Injection Marks New Front In Battle Over Executions On May 1., Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett was quoted in the CNN article Oklahoma’s botched lethal injection marks new front in battle over executions on May 1. The botched Oklahoma execution "will not only cause officials in that state to review carefully their execution procedures and methods, it will also almost prompt many Americans across the country to rethink the wisdom, and the morality, of capital punishment," said Richard W. Garnett, a former Supreme Court law clerk who now teaches criminal and constitutional law at the University of Notre Dame. "The Constitution allows capital punishment in some cases, and so the decision whether to use …

On The Virtues Of A Wild Justice, Michael Meltsner

Michael Meltsner

No abstract provided.

Rate Of False Conviction Of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced To Death, Samuel Gross, Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu, Edward Kennedy

Edward H. Kennedy

The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. As a result, very few false convictions are ever discovered, and those that are discovered are not representative of the group as a whole. In the United States, however, a high proportion of false convictions that do come to light and produce exonerations are concentrated among the tiny minority of cases in which defendants are sentenced to …