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The Paradox Of Death Penalty Delay: A Judicial, Empirical, And Ethical Study, Zoë Gill

Senior Theses and Projects

The American death penalty has been at the center of political debates for decades. More specifically, the complexity of death penalty delay has gained significant attention from the public as well as the Supreme Court justices. Death penalty delay represents the time that transpires between when a capital crime is committed and when the execution is carried out. Today, more than half of all prisoners currently sentenced to death have been on death row for more than 18 years. This staggering statistic has ignited debate and divided the conservative justices from the liberal justices even more. This thesis will first …

Deadly 'Toxins': A National Empirical Study Of Racial Bias And Future Dangerousness Determinations, Justin D. Levinson, G. Ben Cohen, Koichi Hioki

Georgia Law Review

Since the beginning of the modern Death Penalty Era, one of the most important—and fraught—areas of capital punishment has been the so-called “future dangerousness” determination, a threshold inquiry that literally rests the defendant’s life or death on jurors’ predictions of the future. An overwhelming majority of capital executions have occurred in jurisdictions that embrace the perceived legitimacy of the future dangerousness inquiry, despite its obvious flaws and potential connection to the age-old racial disparities that continue to plague capital punishment. This Article presents, and empirically tests, the hypothesis that jurors’ future dangerousness assessments cannot be separated from their racial and …

The Intersection Of Wrongful Convictions And Gender In Cases Where Women Were Sentenced To Death Or Life In Prison Without Parole, Connor F. Lang

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Note examines National Registry of Exonerations data and discusses the prevalence of false confessions and presence of a child victim in cases of women who were convicted of murder, received a serious sentence, and were later exonerated. After looking at the cases of women exonerated after receiving death sentences or life without parole sentences in light of the prevalence of these factors, this Note argues that examination of the cases reveals that the presence of a false confession or a child victim may have contributed to some of the wrongful convictions where these factors may have led to the …

When Mental Health Meets “The One-Armed Man” Defense: How Courts Should Deal With Mccoy Defendants, Farid Seyyedi

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The Supreme Court’s opinion in McCoy v. Louisiana held that a defendant has a constitutional right to insist their attorney not concede guilt as to any element of an offense, even if doing so is the only reasonable trial strategy to give the defendant a chance at life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. Under McCoy’s holding, a defendant can insist on maintaining their innocence—even in the face of overwhelming evidence—and force their attorney to pursue a defense that will land them on death row. The Supreme Court’s holding makes clear that a strategic concession of guilt at trial—over …

Examining Death Penalty Ballot Measures: A Review Of Austin Sarat’S The Death Penalty On The Ballot, Michael Conklin

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Sister Helen Prejean And The Death Penalty: Decades Of Fighting Capital Punishment, University Marketing And Communications, Helen Prejean

DePaul Download

Sister Helen Prejean has dedicated her life to opposing the death penalty after she witnessed an execution in her home state of Louisiana. Her efforts have sparked a national dialogue on capital punishment and she has helped shape the Catholic Church’s position on the topic. In 2011, she donated her personal archives to the university to help the DePaul community continue to learn from her work. On this episode of DePaul Download, Sister Helen talks about life’s work and what keeps her going.

Replacing Death With Life? The Rise Of Lwop In The Context Of Abolitionist Campaigns In The United States, Michelle Miao

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

On the basis of fifty-four elite interviews[1] with legislators, judges, attorneys, and civil society advocates as well as a state-by-state data survey, this Article examines the complex linkage between the two major penal trends in American society during the past decades: a declining use of capital punishment across the United States and a growing population of prisoners serving “life without the possibility of parole” or “LWOP” sentences. The main contribution of the research is threefold. First, the research proposes to redefine the boundary between life and death in relation to penal discourses regarding the death penalty and LWOP. LWOP …

Texas, The Death Penalty, And Intellectual Disability, Megan Green

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

How Strong Is Public Support For The Death Penalty In Singapore?, Wing-Cheong Chan, Ern Ser Tan, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, Braema Mathi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Singapore is well known internationally for its uncompromising stance towards law and order and its use of the death penalty in particular for murder and drug trafficking. Until 2012, it was one of the few countries in the world where the death penalty was mandatory for persons convicted of these two crimes. The law was amended in 2012 to give a judge the choice to impose the death penalty or life imprisonment (with caning) for non-intentional murder and drug trafficking in some situations. What do Singaporeans think of the use of the death penalty in their own country? This article …

Death In America Under Color Of Law: Our Long, Inglorious Experience With Capital Punishment, Rob Warden, Daniel Lennard

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

The Concept Of “Unusual Punishments” In Anglo-American Law: The Death Penalty As Arbitrary, Discriminatory, And Cruel And Unusual, John D. Bessler

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, like the English Bill of Rights before it, safeguards against the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments.” To better understand the meaning of that provision, this Article explores the concept of “unusual punishments” and its opposite, “usual punishments.” In particular, this Article traces the use of the “usual” and “unusual” punishments terminology in Anglo-American sources to shed new light on the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause. The Article surveys historical references to “usual” and “unusual” punishments in early English and American texts, then analyzes the development of American constitutional law as …

African Courts And Separation Of Powers: A Comparative Study Of Judicial Review In Uganda & South, Joseph M. Isanga

Joseph Isanga

Achieving political stability in a transitional democracy is a fundamental goal, the resoluteness of which is in part maintained by courts of judicial review that are independent from political bias and devoid of deference to traditionally more powerful branches of government. The recent democratic transitions occurring in the African nations of South Africa and Uganda provide a unique, contemporary insight into the formation of a constitutional jurisprudence. This study is an examination of pivotal cases decided by the Constitutional Courts of South Africa and Uganda, the roles that these decisions play in political stability, and the potential for political bias …

Deterrence, David Crump

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Substantial Guidance Without Substantive Guides: Resolving The Requirements Of Moore V. Texas And Hall V. Florida, Clinton M. Barker

Vanderbilt Law Review

Exempting certain classes of people from the possibility of the death penalty is hardly new; Blackstone noted the common law prohibition on executing the insane, stating that "furiosus furore solum punitur"-madness is its own punishment.' Even then, however, "the reasons for the rule [were] less sure and less uniform than the rule itself." 2 In the United States, Eighth Amendment jurisprudence does little to clarify the reasons behind a particular death penalty exemption because it relies, in part, on the practice of the states to decide what is outside the bounds of acceptable punishment. 3 Because exemptions are thus dependent …

If It Walks Like Systematic Exclusion And Quacks Like Systematic Exclusion: Follow-Up On Removal Of Women And African-Americans In Jury Selection In South Carolina Capital Cases, 1997-2014, Ann M. Eisenberg, Amelia Courtney Hritz, Caisa Elizabeth Royer, John H. Blume

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article builds on an earlier study analyzing bases and rates of removal of women and African-American jurors in a set of South Carolina capital cases decided between 1997 and 2012. We examine and assess additional data from new perspectives in order to establish a more robust, statistically strengthened response to the original research question: whether, and if so, why, prospective women and African-American jurors were disproportionately removed in different stages of jury selection in a set of South Carolina capital cases.

The study and the article it builds on add to decades of empirical research exploring the impacts (or …

Ideology, Race, And The Death Penalty: "Lies, Damn Lies, And Statistics" In Advocacy Research, Anthony Walsh, Virginia Hatch

Journal of Ideology

We use the literature on race in death penalty to illustrate the hold that ideology has on researchers and journalists alike when a social issue is charged with emotional content. We note particularly how statistical evidence become misinterpreted in ways that support a particular ideology, either because of innumeracy or because—subconsciously or otherwise—one’s ideology precludes a critical analysis. We note that because white defendants are now proportionately more likely to receive the death penalty and to be executed than black defendants that the argument has shifted from a defendant-based to a victim-based one. We examine studies based on identical data …

Following Finality: Why Capital Punishment Is Collapsing Under Its Own Weight, Corinna Barrett Lain

Law Faculty Publications

Death is different, the adage goes - different in its severity and different in its finality. Death, in its finality, is more than just a punishment. Death is the end of our existence as we know it. It is final in an existential way.

Because death is final in an existential way, the Supreme Court has held that special care is due when the penalty is imposed. We need to get it right. My claim in this chapter is that the constitutional regulation designed to implement that care has led to a series of cascading effects that threaten the …

Justice Scalia’S Originalism And Formalism: The Rule Of Criminal Law As A Law Of Rules, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

Far too many reporters and pundits collapse law into politics, assuming that the left–right divide between Democratic and Republican appointees neatly explains politically liberal versus politically conservative outcomes at the Supreme Court. The late Justice Antonin Scalia defied such caricatures. His consistent judicial philosophy made him the leading exponent of originalism, textualism, and formalism in American law, and over the course of his three decades on the Court, he changed the terms of judicial debate. Now, as a result, supporters and critics alike start with the plain meaning of the statutory or constitutional text rather than loose appeals to legislative …

Muscle Memory And The Local Concentration Of Capital Punishment, Lee B. Kovarsky

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Religious Objections To The Death Penalty After Hobby Lobby, Danieli Evans

Articles

In Glossip v. Gross, the Supreme Court held that in order to prevail on the claim that a method of execution is cruel and unusual punishment, petitioners must prove that there is an available alternative that entails a lesser risk of pain. In this case, the state was using a method that is allegedly more painful than drugs used in the past because manufacturers of the preferable drugs objected to selling them for the purpose of executions. These manufacturers are not alone in their desire to boycott the death penalty. Many religious groups have declared opposition to the death …

Implicit Bias And Capital Decision-Making: Using Narrative To Counter Prejudicial Psychiatric Labels, Sean O'Brien, Kathleen Wayland

Faculty Works

Overreliance on psychiatric diagnostic labels in the defense of death penalty cases risks triggering prejudicial associations in the minds of decision-makers. This article emphasizes the importance of developing a mitigating counter-narrative of the defendant’s life story, based on an extensive longitudinal and developmental investigation of the defendant and his family’s life trajectory. It is the client’s life story, not diagnostic labels, that reveals his humanity. Cognitive psychology provides a useful framework for explaining human perceptions, and how implicit or explicit biases can interfere with the objective interpretation of data in ways that affect judgment and behavior.

Future Dangerousness In Capital Cases: Always "At Issue", John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

Under Simmons v. South Carolina, a capital defendant who, if not sentenced to death, will remain in prison with no chance of parole is constitutionally entitled to an instruction informing the jury of the fact, but only if the prosecution engages in conduct that places the defendant's future dangerousness "at issue." Based on data collected from interviews with South Carolina capital jurors, Professors Blume, Garvey and Johnson argue that future dangerousness is on the minds of most capital jurors, and is thus "at issue" in virtually all capital trials, regardless of the prosecution's conduct. Accordingly, the authors argue that the …

Future Dangerousness In Capital Cases: Always "At Issue", John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Stephen P. Garvey

Under Simmons v. South Carolina, a capital defendant who, if not sentenced to death, will remain in prison with no chance of parole is constitutionally entitled to an instruction informing the jury of the fact, but only if the prosecution engages in conduct that places the defendant's future dangerousness "at issue." Based on data collected from interviews with South Carolina capital jurors, Professors Blume, Garvey and Johnson argue that future dangerousness is on the minds of most capital jurors, and is thus "at issue" in virtually all capital trials, regardless of the prosecution's conduct. Accordingly, the authors argue that the …

The Merciful Capital Juror, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey

Stephen P. Garvey

We examine the role of mercy in capital sentencing along three dimensions. We first explain why mercy is a philosophically problematic virtue, and second, why it presently holds an ambiguous status within constitutional doctrine. Finally, we draw on interviews with jurors who served on capital cases in order better to understand how the behavior of merciful jurors compares to the behavior of their less merciful counterparts. Among other things, we find that merciful jurors tend to be better educated and to attend religious services regularly. We also find that merciful jurors are, as one might reasonably expect, more apt to …

Explaining Death Row's Population And Racial Composition, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells

John H. Blume

Twenty-three years of murder and death sentence data show how murder demographics help explain death row populations. Nevada and Oklahoma are the most death-prone states; Texas's death sentence rate is below the national mean. Accounting for the race of murderers establishes that black representation on death row is lower than black representation in the population of murder offenders. This disproportion results from reluctance to seek or impose death in black defendant-black victim cases, which more than offsets eagerness to seek and impose death in black defendant-white victim cases. Death sentence rates in black defendant-white victim cases far exceed those in …

Future Dangerousness In Capital Cases: Always "At Issue", John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson

John H. Blume

Under Simmons v. South Carolina, a capital defendant who, if not sentenced to death, will remain in prison with no chance of parole is constitutionally entitled to an instruction informing the jury of the fact, but only if the prosecution engages in conduct that places the defendant's future dangerousness "at issue." Based on data collected from interviews with South Carolina capital jurors, Professors Blume, Garvey and Johnson argue that future dangerousness is on the minds of most capital jurors, and is thus "at issue" in virtually all capital trials, regardless of the prosecution's conduct. Accordingly, the authors argue that the …

Criminal Procedure Decisions From The October 2006 Term, Susan N. Herman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Mental Health, Psychology, And The Law, Mary Kay Kisthardt

Faculty Works

The authors coordinated and edited a symposium law review issue on Mental Health, Psychology and the Law. The Introduction summarizes submissions that included a memoir from an author whose family members were consumers of mental health services, legal scholars and practitioners who use mental health evidence to defend clients facing the death penalty, and the duty of attorneys to tend to their own mental health care needs while dealing with these emotionally heavy issues.

The European Union And The Abolition Of The Death Penalty, Christian Behrmann, Jon Yorke

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

The European Union has become a leading regional force in the progress towards a world free of state sanctioned judicial killing in the form of the death penalty. This article investigates how the EU has evolved its abolitionist position. It analyzes the development of the region’s internal policy beginning in the European Parliament, to the rejection of the punishment being mandated as a Treaty provision, which evolves into an integral component of the external human rights project. The EU has now formulated technical bilateral and multilateral initiatives to promote abolition worldwide. This is most clearly evidenced in the EU playing …

An Anachronism Too Discordant To Be Suffered: A Comparative Study Of Parliamentary And Presidential Approaches To Regulation Of The Death Penalty, Derek R. Verhagen

Derek R VerHagen

It is well-documented that the United States remains the only western democracy to retain the death penalty and finds itself ranked among the world's leading human rights violators in executions per year. However, prior to the Gregg v. Georgia decision in 1976, ending America's first and only moratorium on capital punishment, the U.S. was well in line with the rest of the civilized world in its approach to the death penalty. This Note argues that America's return to the death penalty is based primarily on the differences between classic parliamentary approaches to regulation and that of the American presidential system. …