Law Commons^™

Deadly Confusion: Juror Instructions In Capital Cases, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

A fatal mistake. A defendant is sentenced to die because the jury was misinformed about the law. The justice system should be designed to prevent such a tragic error. Yet our interviews with jurors who served in South Carolina capital cases indicate that this nightmare is a reality.

Although our data are limited to South Carolina, the question whether jurors are adequately instructed in capital cases is of national concern. For example, the issue whether jurors should be more fully informed about the alternative to a death sentence has arisen in other states. And the question whether jurors understand the …

Harmless Error In Federal Habeas Corpus After Brecht V. Abrahamson, John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The law of habeas corpus has changed again. This time it was the law of harmless error. Before Brecht v. Abrahamson, the courts applied the same harmless error rule on direct appeal and in federal habeas corpus. Under that rule, embraced for constitutional errors in Chapman v. California, a conviction tainted by a constitutional error susceptible to harmless error analysis could be upheld only if the state demonstrated that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. After Brecht, the venerable Chapman rule still applies to constitutional errors identified and reviewed on direct appeal, but an ostensibly "less …

Pruett V. Thompson 996 F.2d 1560 (4th Cir. 1993)

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Morgan V. Illinois: The Defense Gets The Reverse- Witherspoon Question, Thomas Joshua R. Archer

Mercer Law Review

In Morgan v. Illinois the United States Supreme Court settled the "reverse- Witherspoon" question. The Court held that a trial court in a capital case must, upon the defendant's request, specifically inquire into a prospective juror's views on capital punishment and that a potential juror who would always vote for a sentence of death, regardless of the facts, must be struck for cause. Further, the Court stated that the presence of even one partial juror on a defendant's panel offends the defendant's Fourteenth Amendment right to a fair and impartial jury and the sentence may not stand.

Before Morgan …

Wise V. Williams 982 F.2d 142 (4th Cir. 1992)

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Chronological Outline Of A Capital Murder Trial, Rhonda L. Overstreet

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Flow Chart Of The Stages Of A Capital Murder Trial

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

The Romance Of Revenge: Capital Punishment In America, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

On February 17, 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive terms of life imprisonment for killing and dismembering 15 young men and boys (Associated Press 1992a). Dahmer had been arrested six months earlier, on July 22, 1991. On January 13 he pled guilty to the fifteen murder counts against him, leaving open only the issue of his sanity. Jury selection began two weeks later, and the trial proper started on January 30. The jury heard two weeks of testimony about murder, mutilation and necrophilia; they deliberated for 5 hours before finding that Dahmer was sane when he committed these …

Some Steps Between Attitudes And Verdicts, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Book Chapters

Most research that has attempted to predict verdict preferences on the basis of stable juror characteristics, such as attitudes and personality traits, has found that individual differences among jurors are not very useful predictors, accounting for only a small proportion of the variance in verdict choices. Some commentators have therefore concluded that verdicts are overwhelmingly accounted for by "the weight of the evidence," and that differences among jurors have negligible effects. But there is a paradox here: In most cases the weight of the evidence is insufficient to produce firstballot unanimity in the jury (Hans & Vidmar, 1986; Hastie, Penrod, …