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Full-Text Articles in Law
Not To Decide Is To Decide: The U.S. Supreme Court's Thirty-Year Struggle With One Case About Competency To Waive Death Penalty Appeals, Phyllis L. Crocker
Not To Decide Is To Decide: The U.S. Supreme Court's Thirty-Year Struggle With One Case About Competency To Waive Death Penalty Appeals, Phyllis L. Crocker
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Rees v. Peyton, a case that had been on its docket since 1965. Rees was a death penalty case in which the petitioner sought to withdraw his petition for writ of certiorari so that he could be executed. The Court stayed the proceedings after Rees was found incompetent to waive his appeal, but the Court did not dismiss the case until after Rees died of natural causes. Rees pended in the Court during the terms of three Chief Justices. Even though the Court underwent major changes in personnel and philosophy during those years, …
Crossing The Line: Rape-Murder And The Death Penalty, Phyllis L. Crocker
Crossing The Line: Rape-Murder And The Death Penalty, Phyllis L. Crocker
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
When a woman is raped and then murdered, it is among the most horrifying of crimes. It is also, often, among the most sensational, notorious, and galvanizing of cases. In 1964, Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered in Queens, New York. Her murder sparked soul-searching across the country because her neighbors heard her cries for help and did not respond: it made us question whether we had become an uncaring people. During the 1970s and 80s a number of serial killers raped and murdered their victims: including Ted Bundy in Florida and William George Bonin, the “Freeway Killer,” in Southern …
Childhood Abuse And Adult Murder: Implications For The Death Penalty, Phyllis L. Crocker
Childhood Abuse And Adult Murder: Implications For The Death Penalty, Phyllis L. Crocker
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
A jury that convicts a defendant of capital murder must then decide whether that defendant deserves a life sentence or death. Mitigating evidence is crucial to the defense at this stage because such evidence may provide the jury with a basis for imposing a life sentence. In this article, Professor Crocker argues that evidence that a defendant was abused as a child is paradigmatic mitigating evidence. A detailed presentation of the defendant's childhood experience and a cogent explanation of its long-term repercussions will enable the jury to understand why the defendant committed the crime, perhaps allowing the jury to sympathize …
Feminism And Defending Men On Death Row, Phyllis L. Crocker
Feminism And Defending Men On Death Row, Phyllis L. Crocker
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
In this Essay I explore the relationship between being a feminist and representing men on death row. It is appropriate to engage in this inquiry in considering how the law has developed in the twenty-five years since Furman v. Georgia. During that time both Furman and the advent of feminist legal theory have required a restructuring in the way we think about two fundamental legal questions: for death penalty jurisprudence, how and why we sentence an individual to death; and for feminist jurisprudence, how the law views crimes of violence against women. The relationship between these two developments becomes apparent …
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
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
The punishment of death is supposed to be reserved for those defendants who commit the most grievous murders and deserve the most extreme punishment. It is constitutionally insufficient to conclude that because a defendant is guilty of committing murder, death is the only deserved punishment. The judgment that a defendant is one of the few who will be sentenced to death requires an inquiry that looks beyond the defendant's guilt to consider whether the defendant is worthy of a death sentence. This article argues that the distinction between a defendant's guilt and deathworthiness is so often obscured that defendants who …
Chaining The Leviathan: The Unconstitutionality Of Executing Those Convicted Of Treason, James G. Wilson
Chaining The Leviathan: The Unconstitutionality Of Executing Those Convicted Of Treason, James G. Wilson
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
This article focuses on two words: executing traitors. We have a good idea of what the first word means, even if we repress the sordid details of the actual dying. Treason, however, is a word notable both for its ambiguity and for the powerful emotions it evokes, emotions found in such equally potent words as betrayal, war and defeat. As will be seen, by limiting the crime to two types of actions and by requiring unique procedural protections, the drafters of the Constitution balanced the country's need for protection from treason against their fear that a future administration might instigate …