Law Commons^™

Science, Public Bioethics, And The Problem Of Integration, O. Carter Snead

O. Carter Snead

Public bioethics — the governance of science, medicine, and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods — is an emerging area of American law. The field uniquely combines scientific knowledge, moral reasoning, and prudential judgments about democratic decision making. It has captured the attention of officials in every branch of government, as well as the American public itself. Public questions (such as those relating to the law of abortion, the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and the regulation of end-of-life decision making) continue to roil the public square. This Article examines the question of how scientific methods and …

When It Comes To Abolishing The Death Penalty, Who Should Decide?, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett had the op-ed When It Comes to Abolishing the Death Penalty, Who Should Decide? published in the America on June 29.

There's No Evidence That Death Penalty Is A Deterrent Against Crime, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

No abstract provided.

The Hallmark Of A Champion—Or Not, Robert Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

Two decisions that just came down, one from the United States Supreme Court and the other from the California Supreme Court. The former is Hall v. Florida and the latter is In re Champion on Habeas Corpus. The Hall and Champion cases, although they do not cite each other, both discuss significant issues with regard to who is eligible for execution under the Atkins decision.

Hall and Champion perpetuate the myth that capital punishment can be imposed accurately and consistently. Additionally, both cases contain serious errors in interpreting science while suggesting that life and death decisions can be based on …

Comparison Of The Illinois Commission Report On Capital Punishment With The Capital Punishment System In California, Robert M. Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

No abstract provided.

Symbol And Substance In The Massachusetts Commission Report, Franklin E. Zimring

Franklin E. Zimring

Symposium: Toward A Model Death Penalty Code: The Massachusetts Governor's Council Report.

Defending The Death Penalty Case: What Makes Death Different?, Andrea Lyon

Andrea D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

To Furman Or Not To Furman, Robert M. Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

In capital litigation, the United States Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia and following cases required capital punishment systems to have a form of "narrowing" so that the death penalty was imposed only on the worst of the worst. The death penalty states have failed to successfully implement this concept. As a result, "narrowing" is currently raised in all capital cases by competent defense counsel both at trial and in post conviction litigation. It is raised in addition to all other issues, including issues related to the questions of whether exclusion from the death penalty should be expanded and whether …

Blind Justice, Andrea Lyon

Andrea D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

Undue Burden, Andrea Lyon

Andrea D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

Dying To Win, Andrea Lyon

Andrea D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

The Aba Guidelines And The Norms Of Capital Defense Representation, Russell Stetler, W. Bradley Wendel

W. Bradley Wendel

The ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases (“Guidelines”), as revised in 2003, continue to stand as the single most authoritative summary of the prevailing professional norms in the realm of capital defense practice. Hundreds of court opinions have cited the Guidelines. They have been particularly useful in helping courts to assess the investigation and presentation of mitigating evidence in death penalty cases. This Article will discuss how these Guidelines have come to reflect prevailing professional norms in this critical area of capital defense practice and how that practice has developed in the …

Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient Test Scores And The Impropriety Of “Ethnic (Or Socio-Economic) Adjustment” In Atkins Cases, Robert Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

After attending this presentation, attendees will gain new information regarding developments in epigenetics which relate to the validity of Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) scores in determining intellectual disability for the purpose of eligibility of a criminal defendant to be executed if otherwise subject to the death penalty. (Complete Abstract at page 727 of the proceedings: http://www.aafs.org/sites/default/files/2015/2015Proceedings.pdf )

Iq, Intelligence Testing, Ethnic Adjustments And Atkins, Robert M. Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

Death Penalty Jurisprudence By Tallying State Legislative Enactments: Harmonizing The Eighth And Tenth Amendments, Akram Faizer, Charles E. Maclean

Akram Faizer

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 …

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 …

Naming The Dragon: Litigating Race Issues During A Death Penalty Trial, Andrea Lyon

Andrea D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

Death Penalty In America -- Recent Pew Study, Robert Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

The Pew Research Center published the results of its 2013 survey in a release dated February 12, 2014. That study has implications for the continuation of the death penalty in America and California, in particular. It also contains some striking results with regard to the position taken by the game theory strategists who argue against discussing the moral issues.

Capital Punishment In Recent Literature -- Jaques Derrida, Robert Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

The University of Chicago Press has just published The Death Penalty, Volume One (The Seminars of Jacques Derrida) translated by Peggy Kamuf. They are the lectures of the late continental philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) on capital punishment. Derrida is the author of deconstruction (if deconstruction were allowed to have an author) and has a reputation for being, let us say, opaque in his writings.

In his later years, he took up certain legal and political issues in a fashion that seems more intelligible. Particularly, Derrida’s lectures on moral subjects were popular in the United States as well as Europe. The …

The Dilemmas Of Excessive Sentencing: Death May Be Different But How Different?, Michael Meltsner

Michael Meltsner

No abstract provided.

Legalized Lynch Mobs In The 21st Century: Racial Improprieties In The Death Penalty, Betsy A. Daniller

Betsy A Daniller

No abstract provided.

The Death Penalty, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

A system of punishment involving the execution of individuals convicted of a capital crime.

The issue of the death penalty has been an area of enormous academic and political ferment in the United States over the last forty years, with the country flirting with abolition in the 1970s, followed by a period of renewed use of the death penalty, and then a period of retrenchment, reflected in a declining number of death sentences and executions and a recent trend leading six states to abolish the death penalty in the last six years. Internationally, there is a steady movement away from …

Maryland Repeals The Death Penalty, But Leaves Five On Death Row: Should The State That Condemned An Innocent Man To Die Commute All Five Death Sentences?, Meredith Pendergrass

Meredith Pendergrass

No abstract provided.

Death Watch: Change, Redemption Do Exist, David Bruck

David I. Bruck

No abstract provided.

Capital Punishment In Connecticut, 1973-2007: A Comprehensive Evaluation From 4686 Murders To One Execution, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

This study explores and evaluates the application of the death penalty in Connecticut from 1973 until 2007, a period during which 4686 murders were committed in the state. The objective is to assess whether the system operates lawfully and reasonably or is marred by arbitrariness, caprice, or discrimination. My empirical approach has three components. First, I provide background information on the overall numbers of murders, death sentences, and executions in Connecticut. The extreme infrequency with which the death penalty is administered in Connecticut raises a serious question as to whether the state’s death penalty regime is serving any legitimate social …

Sentencing The Mentally Retarded To Death: An Eighth Amendment Analysis, John H. Blume, David Bruck

David I. Bruck

Today, on death rows across the United States, sit a number of men with the minds of children. These people are mentally retarded. Typical of these individuals is Limmie Arthur, who currently is imprisoned at Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina. Although Arthur is twenty-eight years old, all the mental health professionals who have evaluated him, including employees of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, agree he has the mental capacity of approximately a 10-year-old child. Arthur was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a neighbor. At his first trial, his court appointed attorneys did not …

Forgetting Furman: Arbitrary Death Penalty Schemes Across The Nation, Sarah A. Mourer

Sarah Mourer

The legislature has forgotten the lessons taught by Furman v. Georgia and today, the “untrammeled discretion” once held by juries is now held by the judiciary. Many death penalty sentencing procedures are unconstitutional, in violation of both the Sixth and Eighth Amendments, because the judge alone is authorized to sentence the defendant to life or death despite being uninformed of the jury’s factual findings. Pursuant to the Sixth Amendment as articulated in Ring v. Arizona, the factual findings upon which a death sentence rests must be found by the jury, and only the jury. Nevertheless, many jurisdictions permit the judge …

John Donohue, When Social Sciences Save Lives, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

If you think academic work can’t be “emotionally draining”, meet John Donohue, the C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, who’s teaching law and economics at Bocconi as a short-term visiting professor. In the last six years his academic interests led him to the death rows of Connecticut prisons and his work is the main piece of evidence in a trial which will decide the fate of five inmates sentenced to death and perhaps of six more.

Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying: Waiting For The Death Penalty, A Comparison Of The Appeals Process In The United States And The People’S Republic Of China, Derrick Yan Kit Wong

Derrick Wong

This paper looks at the death penalty in the United States and China with a comparison of the judicial system in each country. The paper examines the speed at which China processes their death penalty cases and the delay in the US system. The purpose of the paper is to show that because of the delays in the US system, the financial burden to the taxpayer is increased and is not viewed as deterrence. If the US were to adopt a portion of the Chinese judicial system efficiency without sacrificing due process, then the death penalty can be a deterrent …