Law Commons^™

Lockett Symposium: Recollections On The Lockett Case In The U.S. Supreme Court, Joel Berger

ConLawNOW

Recollections of an NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney who worked with Professor Amsterdam on the Lockett case.

Lockett Symposium: Is The Supreme Court's Command On Mitigating Circumstances A Spoonful Of Sugar With A Poison Pill For The Death Penalty?, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier

ConLawNOW

This Article addresses how Lockett v. Ohio and the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on mitigating factors in capital cases established a more humane death penalty while at the same time undermining the death penalty system. The Court’s emphasis on the constitutional importance of individualized sentencing has, in effect, helped return the U.S. death penalty system to an unconstitutional arbitrary and discriminatory system.

After the U.S. Supreme Court effectively struck down the existing death penalty statutes in 1972, state legislatures responded with new statutes designed to try to make a fairer and less arbitrary death penalty. When the Supreme Court reviewed these …

Vice Presidential Immunity In The Age Of Impeachment: A Fresh Look At The Agnew Precedent, Mark E. Coon

ConLawNOW

Since the 1973 prosecution of incumbent Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken the position that sitting Vice Presidents are not constitutionally immune from criminal prosecution in the same way that sitting Presidents are. With the modern rise of prosecution and impeachment as weapons in the political arsenal, the Agnew precedent threatens to upset the constitutional balance of power because it makes Vice Presidents easily removable. This essay argues that the Agnew precedent is incorrect and that Vice Presidents are absolutely immune from prosecution while in office because of the Vice Presidency’s role in the …