Law Commons^™

Racial Disparity And The Death Penalty, John C. Mcadams

Law and Contemporary Problems

McAdams examines the rhetoric and data supporting the "mass market" version of the racial disparity thesis. The system is racist in that it punishes those who kill whites more severely than those who kill blacks.

Aggravation And Mitigation In Capital Cases: What Do Jurors Think?, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Capital Jury Project in South Carolina interviewed jurors who sat in forty-one capital murder cases. The Project asked jurors a range of questions relating to crime, the defendant, the victim, the victim's family, the jurors' deliberations, the conduct of counsel, and background characteristics of the jurors. In this essay, Professor Stephen P. Garvey presents and examines data from the Project relating to the importance jurors attach to various aggravating and mitigating factors. The results suggest that jurors have a discernible moral compass. According to the data, jurors found especially brutal killings, killings with child victims, future dangerousness, and lack …

Defending Categorical Exemptions To The Death Penalty: Reflections On The Aba’S Resolutions Concerning The Execution Of Juveniles And Persons With Mental Retardation, Carol Steiker, Jordan Steiker

Law and Contemporary Problems

Steiker and Steiker discuss the ABA's resolutions regarding the execution of juveniles and persons with mental retardation. The strongest legal case for the ABA's position requires a more nuanced argument than the ABA has advanced.

Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross

Law and Contemporary Problems

Gross discusses the incidence of erroneous convictions for capital murder, which are systematic consequences of the natuere of homicide prosection in general and capital prosecution in particular.

Death By Default: State Procedural Default Doctrine In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Pamela A. Wilkins

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Before 1991, South Carolina capital defendants benefitted from lenient policies of error preservation. However, in 1991 the South Carolina Supreme Court put an end to these policies and began enforcing default rules that are more draconian than those of any other American jurisdiction with a death penalty. Furthermore, the South Carolina Supreme Court’s decisions have made it difficult for trial practitioners to discern the rules under which they must operate. Taken in combination, the strictness of the new procedural policy, the lack of clarity regarding the applicable rules, and the South Carolina Supreme Court’s often ad hoc approach to enforcing …

The Quality Of Justice In Capital Cases: Illinois As A Case Study, Leigh B. Bienen

Law and Contemporary Problems

Bienen uses Illinois as a case study of injustice in capital cases. The quality of justice in the trial and appeal of capital cases in Illinois is of a very low standard.

Recapturing The Spirit Of Furman: The American Bar Association And The New Abolitionist Politics, Austin Sarat

Law and Contemporary Problems

Sarat locates the American Bar Association's call for a moratorium on executions in the context of modern abolitionist politics. New abolitionism links anti-death penalty work with a broader civil rights agenda.

Moratorium On The Death Penalty For Juveniles, Victor L. Streib

Law and Contemporary Problems

Streib offers a sketch of the sentences and actual executions in the juvenile death penalty system for the past quarter-century. The ABA's moratorium calls for the complete prevention of the execution of offenders under age 18 at the time of their crimes.

The American Bar Association And Federal Habeas Corpus, Larry W. Yackle

Law and Contemporary Problems

Yackle evaluates the ABA's claims touching federal habeas corpus in death penalty cases. Neither the Supreme Court nor the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 embrace the ABA's policy for habeas corpus.

Appendix: American Bar Association Resolution

Law and Contemporary Problems

The ABA's resolution and report regarding its moratorium on capital punishment is offered.

The Execution Of The Innocent, Michael L. Radelet, Hugo Adam Bedau

Law and Contemporary Problems

Radelet and Bedau discuss the continuing and regular incidence of American trial courts sentencing innocent defendants to death, which was one of the problems that gave rise to the ABA's moratorium on capital punishment.

Eighth Amendment Meanings From The Aba’S Moratorium Resolution, Louis D. Bilionis

Law and Contemporary Problems

Bilionis argues that the American Bar Association's moratorium resolution on capital punishment doesn't challenge the capacity of the Eighth Amendment.

Justice Blackmun, Franz Kafka, And Capital Punishment, Martha Dragich

Faculty Publications

The Article discusses the problem of judging death penalty cases, comparing Justice Blackmun's death penalty jurisprudence to the struggle of a character in Kafka's story. It focuses on three critical moments in the decisional process--hesitation, decision, and escape--and assesses Justice Blackmun's performance at each step. It concludes that although Justice Blackmun's views remained consistent throughout his judicial career, his death penalty legacy is equivocal, and in some important respects, unsatisfying.

Getting Out Of This Mess: Steps Toward Addressing And Avoiding Inordinate Delay In Capital Cases, Dwight Aarons

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

But Was He Sorry? The Role Of Remorse In Capital Sentencing, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

What role does remorse really play in capital sentencing? We divide this basic question in two. First, what makes jurors come to believe a defendant is remorseful? Second, does a belief in the defendant's remorse affect the jury's final judgment of life or death? Here we present a systematic, empirical analysis that tries to answer these questions.

What makes jurors think a defendant is remorseful? Among other things, we find that the more jurors think that the crime is coldblooded, calculated, and depraved and that the defendant is dangerous, the less likely they are to think the defendant is remorseful. …

How Empirical Studies Can Affect Positively The Politics Of The Death Penalty, Ronald J. Tabak

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Update: American Public Opinion On The Death Penalty-It’S Getting Personal , Samuel R. Gross

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racial Discrimination And The Death Penalty In The Post-Furman Era: An Empirical And Legal Overview With Recent Findings From Philadelphia , David C. Baldus, George Woodworth, David Zuckerman, Neil Alan Weiner

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

International Law And Abolition Of The Death Penalty, William A. Schabas

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Virginia's "21 Day Rule" And Illinois' Death Row Debacle: A Comparative Study In Capital Justice And The Relevance Of Innocence, Anne E. Duprey

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

Capital Punishment And The Courts-Martial: Questions Surface Following Loving V. United States, Christine Daniels

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Carter Center Symposium On The Death Penalty, Georgia State University Law Review

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Failed Case For Eighth Amendment Regulation Of The Capital-Sentencing Trial, Scott W. Howe

Scott W. Howe

This article explores Eighth Amendment theories that might justify the effort by the Supreme Court to regulate capital-sentencing trials but explains why they are problematic. The Court typically has asserted that the aim of its capital-sentencing doctrine is to achieve nonarbitrariness or consistency in the use of the death penalty. However, the article shows why the Court's regulatorty efforts have not served that goal, why that goal is unachievable, and, ultimately, why that goal does not comport with the mandate of the Eighth Amendment. The article contends that the better view is that the Eighth Amendment limits the use of …

Harris V. Commonwealth: The Use Of "Statutory" Aggravating Circumstances In Kentucky's Sentencing Procedure, Melissa Bartlett

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Clemency Procedures We Can Live With: What Process Is Due In Capital Clemency Proceedings After Ohio Adult Parole Authority V. Woodard?, Brian S. Clarke

Brian S. Clarke

The United States Supreme Court has denied certiorari for the final time. All state and federal appeals have been exhausted. The execution date has been set. There is only one thing that can save the death row inmate from the ultimate punishment: the proverbial call from the governor and a grant of executive clemency.

This scene, although a veritable Hollywood cliche, is being played out in prisons across America with increasing frequency. As of July 1, 1998, there were 3,474 men and women on death row in America. In 1996, with the passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty …

Does New York's Death Penalty Statute Violate The New York Constitution?, Honorable Stewart F. Hancock Jr., Christopher Quinn, Richard Klein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Relevance Of "Execution Impact" Testimony As Evidence Of Capital Defendants' Character, Darcy F. Katzin

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Capital Jury And Absolution: The Intersection Of Trial Strategy Remorse And The Death Penalty, Scott E. Sundby

Articles

No abstract provided.

Standards And Procedures For Determining Whether A Defendant Is Competent To Make The Ultimate Choice - Death; Ohio's New Precedent For Death Row Volunteers, Matthew T. Norman

Journal of Law and Health

Despite the fact that many states will allow a death row defendant to waive his legal appeals in order to hasten his execution date, there are inadequate standards and procedures for determining whether the "volunteer" is first competent to make this ultimate decision of life versus death. To provide background for this issue, this Note will discuss the events initially leading up to the nation's first death row "volunteer", then it will introduce subsequent volunteers of the present day. This Note then will look at what the United States Supreme Court has said about the standards and procedures that are …

Feminism And Defending Men On Death Row Symposium: Thoughts On Death Penalty Issues 25 Years After Furman V. Georgia., Phyllis L. Crocker

St. Mary's Law Journal

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 individuals to death; and for feminist jurisprudence, how the law views crimes of violence against women. The relationship between these two developments becomes apparent when …