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Washington and Lee University School of Law
Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice
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Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law
The Gross Injustices Of Capital Punishment: A Torturous Practice And Justice Thurgood Marshall’S Astute Appraisal Of The Death Penalty’S Cruelty, Discriminatory Use, And Unconstitutionality, John D. Bessler
Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice
Through the centuries, capital punishment and torture have been used by monarchs, authoritarian regimes, and judicial systems around the world. Although torture is now expressly outlawed by international law, capital punishment—questioned by Quakers in the seventeenth century and by the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria and many others in the following century—has been authorized over time by various legislative bodies, including in the United States. It was Beccaria’s book, Dei delitti e delle pene (1764), translated into French and then into English as An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1767), that fueled the still-ongoing international movement to outlaw the death penalty. …
Bailing On Cash Bail: A Proposal To Restore Indigent Defendants’ Right To Due Process And Innocence Until Proven Guilty, Cydney Clark
Bailing On Cash Bail: A Proposal To Restore Indigent Defendants’ Right To Due Process And Innocence Until Proven Guilty, Cydney Clark
Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice
The practice of cash bail in the United States is changing. For the past few decades, the cash bail system is abandoning pretrial release and shifting the burden to the defendant thereby abandoning innocence until proven guilty. Bail hearings are increasingly less individualized and discriminatory because of risk assessment tools and judicial discretion without requiring justification, leading to indigent defendants facing unprecedented detainment solely for not being able to afford bail, and thus, violating due process of law. This Note focuses on two 2021 decisions: the California Supreme Court’s decision in In re Humphrey, ruling to partially maintain cash bail, …
The Court And Capital Punishment On Different Paths: Abolition In Waiting, Carol S. Steiker, Jordan M. Steiker
The Court And Capital Punishment On Different Paths: Abolition In Waiting, Carol S. Steiker, Jordan M. Steiker
Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice
The American death penalty finds itself in an unusual position. On the ground, the practice is weaker than at any other time in our history. Eleven jurisdictions have abandoned the death penalty over the past fifteen years, almost doubling the number of states without the punishment (twenty-three). Executions have declined substantially, totaling twenty-five or fewer a year nationwide for the past six years, compared to an average of seventy-seven a year during the six-year span around the millennium (1997-2002). Most tellingly, death sentences have fallen off a cliff, with fewer the fifty death sentences a year nationwide over the past …
Severe Mental Illness And The Death Penalty: A Menu Of Legislative Options, Richard J. Bonnie
Severe Mental Illness And The Death Penalty: A Menu Of Legislative Options, Richard J. Bonnie
Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice
In 2003, the American Bar Association established a Task Force on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty to further specify and implement the Supreme Court’s ruling banning execution of persons with intellectual disability and to consider an analogous ban against imposing the death penalty on defendants with severe mental disorders. The Task Force established formal links with the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the final report was approved by the ABA and the participating organizations in 2005 and 2006. This brief article focuses primarily on diminished responsibility at the time …
Does The Death Penalty Still Matter: Reflections Of A Death Row Lawyer, David I. Bruck
Does The Death Penalty Still Matter: Reflections Of A Death Row Lawyer, David I. Bruck
Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice
This talk was given by Professor David Bruck for the Frances Lewis Law Center at Washington and Lee University School of Law, April, 2002. It is a follow-up to “Does the Death Penalty Matter?,” given by Professor Bruck as the 1990 Ralph E. Shikes Lecture at Harvard Law School.
Removing White Hoods From The Blue Line: A Legislative Solution To White Supremacy In Law Enforcement, Hope Elizabeth Barnes
Removing White Hoods From The Blue Line: A Legislative Solution To White Supremacy In Law Enforcement, Hope Elizabeth Barnes
Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd took his final breaths. His death at the hands of multiple Minneapolis police officers was recorded by witnesses and viewed by millions. The public response to Floyd’s death was immediate and powerful. Americans were demanding change on a greater scale than ever before. The problem with policing is not Derek Chauvin, or the Minneapolis Police Department, but rather with the very institution. White supremacy is alive and well in American policing. This Note begins by examining the historic connection between white supremacist groups and law enforcement agencies. This Note then evaluates existing standards of …
Behind The Screen: Examining The Human Consequences And Constitutional Ramifications Of The Virtual Criminal Defendant, Mallory Kostroff
Behind The Screen: Examining The Human Consequences And Constitutional Ramifications Of The Virtual Criminal Defendant, Mallory Kostroff
Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice
Defendants are waiting behind a screen to learn their fate in their criminal proceedings. This Note sounds the alarm that having incarcerated defendants appear virtually for their criminal proceedings will lead the criminal justice system further down a path of mass incarceration and destruction. This Note demonstrates and argues that there are no benefits for having an incarcerated defendant appear virtually because there are no real benefits to the defendant themselves. Courts further try to argue that video appearances are efficient as they save time and money but as this Note shows those arguments are misleading and miss the point …