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Criminal Law Commons

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Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law

The Eighth Amendment Power To Discriminate, Kathryn E. Miller Jun 2020

The Eighth Amendment Power To Discriminate, Kathryn E. Miller

Washington Law Review

For the last half-century, Supreme Court doctrine has required that capital jurors consider facts and characteristics particular to individual defendants when determining their sentences. While liberal justices have long touted this individualized sentencing requirement as a safeguard against unfair death sentences, in practice the results have been disappointing. The expansive discretion that the requirement confers on overwhelmingly White juries has resulted in outcomes that are just as arbitrary and racially discriminatory as those that existed in the years before the temporary abolition of the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia.1 After decades of attempting to eliminate the requirement, conservative justices …


Bucklew V. Precythe'S Return To The Original Meaning Of "Unusual": Prohibiting Extensive Delays On Death Row, Jacob Leon Apr 2020

Bucklew V. Precythe'S Return To The Original Meaning Of "Unusual": Prohibiting Extensive Delays On Death Row, Jacob Leon

Cleveland State Law Review

The Supreme Court, in Bucklew v. Precythe, provided an originalist interpretation of the term “unusual” in the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This originalist interpretation asserted that the word “unusual” proscribes punishments that have “long fallen out of use.” To support its interpretation, the Supreme Court cited John Stinneford’s well-known law review article The Original Meaning of “Unusual”: The Eighth Amendment as a Bar to Cruel Innovation. This Article, as Bucklew did, accepts Stinneford’s interpretation of the word “unusual” as correct. Under Stinneford’s interpretation, the term “unusual” is a legal term of art derived from eighteenth-century …


Confession Obsession: How To Protect Minors In Interrogations, Cindy Chau Jan 2020

Confession Obsession: How To Protect Minors In Interrogations, Cindy Chau

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.


Urge To Reform Life Without Parole So Nonviolent Addict Offenders Never Serve Lifetime Behind Bars, Johanna Poremba Jan 2020

Urge To Reform Life Without Parole So Nonviolent Addict Offenders Never Serve Lifetime Behind Bars, Johanna Poremba

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.