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Full-Text Articles in Law
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, …
To Act Or Not To Act: Will New York's Defeated Death Penalty Be Resurrected? , Diana N. Huffman
To Act Or Not To Act: Will New York's Defeated Death Penalty Be Resurrected? , Diana N. Huffman
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Capital punishment has always been a topic of controversy in the United States. The debate about the death penalty, its value as a way to permanently incapacitate society's most dangerous criminals and its effectiveness as a deterrent to violent crime, has increased. This phenomenon is particularly visible in New York State, where, in 2004, the New York Court of Appeals struck down the State's death penalty statute as invalid under the New York Constitution. This Note describes the evolution of New York's 1995 death penalty statute, analyzing the way in which the state legislature could respond to the statute's unconstitutionality, …
The Lethal Injection Quandary: How Medicine Has Dismantled The Death Penalty, Deborah W. Denno
The Lethal Injection Quandary: How Medicine Has Dismantled The Death Penalty, Deborah W. Denno
Fordham Law Review
On February 20, 2006, Michael Morales was hours away from execution in California when two anesthesiologists declined to participate in his lethal injection procedure, thereby halting all state executions. The events brought to the surface the long-running schism between law and medicine, raising the question of whether any beneficial connection between the professions ever existed in the execution context. History shows it seldom did. Decades of botched executions prove it. This Article examines how states ended up with such constitutionally vulnerable lethal injection procedures, suggesting that physician participation in executions, though looked upon with disdain, is more prevalent--and perhaps more …
Is The Death Of The Death Penalty Near? The Impact Of Atkins And Roper On The Future Of Capital Punishment For Mentally Ill Defendants, Helen Shin
Fordham Law Review
In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has created two categorical exemptions to the death penalty. In Atkins v. Virginia, the Court exempted mentally retarded offenders. Three years later, in Roper v. Simmons, the Court extended the protection to juveniles. Based on these cases, the practices of foreign countries, and the opinions of professional organizations with relevant expertise, legal scholars speculate that the Court may, in the future, categorically exclude severely mentally ill offenders from the death penalty. This Note examines the feasibility of such an exemption for the mentally ill and considers its possible repercussions.
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.
The Federal Death Penalty: History And Some Thoughts About The Department Of Justice's Role, Rory K. Little
The Federal Death Penalty: History And Some Thoughts About The Department Of Justice's Role, Rory K. Little
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This Article provides a detailed exegesis and evaluation of the federal death penalty, including its 209-year history, recent developments in federal death penalty case law, and the process for national administration of the federal death penalty implemented by Attorney General Janet Reno in 1995. Part I of the article presents the history of the federal death penalty, the recent statutes and relevant case law, and the DOJ's procedures for administering federal death penalty prosecutions. It also describes the 1988 and 1994 statutory procedures for imposing the federal death penalty, and briefly reviews some of the case law leading to, and …
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 …
The Relevance Of "Execution Impact" Testimony As Evidence Of Capital Defendants' Character, Darcy F. Katzin
The Relevance Of "Execution Impact" Testimony As Evidence Of Capital Defendants' Character, Darcy F. Katzin
Fordham Law Review
No abstract provided.
Constitutional Challenges To New York State's Death Penalty Statute, John M. Shields
Constitutional Challenges To New York State's Death Penalty Statute, John M. Shields
Fordham Urban Law Journal
New York State's death penalty statute is constitutionally flawed in many respects. It violates the state and federal prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and provides unrestricted prosecutorial discretion to pursue the death penalty. This standardless and unfettered discretion creates the risk of arbitrary or discriminatory application of capital punishment.
Concepts Of Culpability And Deathworthiness: Differentiating Between Guilt And Punishment In Death Penalty Cases, Phyllis L. Crocker
Concepts Of Culpability And Deathworthiness: Differentiating Between Guilt And Punishment In Death Penalty Cases, Phyllis L. Crocker
Fordham Law Review
No abstract provided.
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.
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 …
Commentary, Ronald J. Tabak
Commentary, Ronald J. Tabak
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Ronald J. Tabak, Chair of the Committee on the Death Penalty for the American Bar Association's Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, discusses the Section's purpose in organizing Forhdam University School of Law's panel discussion on "Politics and the Death Penalty." The goal was to illuminate the variety of effects of a widespread perception that the belief of legislators, governors, prosecutors, judges, clemency boards, political candidates and others that the public is overwhelmingly in support of capital punishment. The Section aimed to bring together knowledgeable people from a variety of perspectives to discuss (a) how the capital punishment system and …
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
Executing Youthful Offenders: The Unanswered Question In Eddings V. Oklahoma, Rona L. Just
Executing Youthful Offenders: The Unanswered Question In Eddings V. Oklahoma, Rona L. Just
Fordham Urban Law Journal
The juvenile justice system was created to "treat" and to "rehabilitate" the juvenile offender. But transfers to the adult criminal system allows for juvenile offenders to receive the death penalty for capital crimes. This Note examines the theories of punishment underlying the death penalty, briefly discusses the creation of the juvenile court system and the mechanism of juvenile transfer. This Note then discusses the development of the death penalty by examining Supreme Court cases which have considered state laws challenged under the eighth amendment as forms of cruel and unusual punishment. Supreme Court decisions which have extended constitutional guarantees to …