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Capital punishment

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Capital Punishment In Oklahoma 1835-1966, Michael Owen Riley Aug 2012

Capital Punishment In Oklahoma 1835-1966, Michael Owen Riley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation explores the history of capital punishment in Oklahoma using a systematic case-by-case examination of the death penalty as it has been used in the Sooner state. The author hopes that better knowledge of the extensive history of that institution in Oklahoma's past will provide insight into the reasons why Oklahoma currently kills its residents at a higher rate than any other politically distinct area in the world for which accurate records are available. This study covers the time period from 1835 with the arrival of the Five Civilized Tribes until 1966 when the last execution by electrocution …

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Families Of Murder Victims' Perceptions Of Capital Punishment : A Content Analysis Of What Family Members Say Following Executions., Corey Daniel Burton 1984- May 2012

Families Of Murder Victims' Perceptions Of Capital Punishment : A Content Analysis Of What Family Members Say Following Executions., Corey Daniel Burton 1984-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Two common assumptions are that the family members of murder victims will achieve closure and perceive a sense of justice following the execution of their loved one's murderer. These assumptions, however, may be unfounded. Using family member statements from newspaper articles reporting on 138 executions in the United States from 2006-2011, the current study examines family member post-execution feelings and attitudes as reported in the media. Results indicate that family member closure and perceived justice following the execution, although the most preeminent themes that emerge, are still relatively uncommon. The results of the current study are discussed in the context …

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Adaptive Behavior Malingering In Legal Claims Of Mental Retardation, Renee M. Kadlubek May 2012

Adaptive Behavior Malingering In Legal Claims Of Mental Retardation, Renee M. Kadlubek

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to put people with mental retardation to death for capital crimes (Atkins v. Virginia, 2002). Justice Scalia dissented, suggesting that mental retardation is a condition easy to feign. The current study examined whether participants provided with the definition of mental retardation and adaptive behavior ("informed malingering group") are any better at malingering having mental retardation than participants not provided with the definitions ("malingering group"). Three groups of participants participated in this study: the control group, the malingering group, and the informed malingering group. All participants completed an intellectual assessment and …

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Jumping On The Bandwagon: The United States Supreme Court Prohibits The Execution Of Mentally Retarded Persons In Atkins V. Virginia, Lisa Odom Apr 2012

Jumping On The Bandwagon: The United States Supreme Court Prohibits The Execution Of Mentally Retarded Persons In Atkins V. Virginia, Lisa Odom

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Ring V. Arizona: The Sixth And Eighth Amendments Collide: Out Of The Wreckage Emerges A Constitutional Safeguard For Capital Defendants, Jason E. Barsanti Apr 2012

Ring V. Arizona: The Sixth And Eighth Amendments Collide: Out Of The Wreckage Emerges A Constitutional Safeguard For Capital Defendants, Jason E. Barsanti

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

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The Folly - And Faith - Of Furman, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson Apr 2012

The Folly - And Faith - Of Furman, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

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Madness Alone Punishes The Madman: The Search For Moral Dignity In The Court's Competency Doctrine As Applied In Capital Cases, J. Amy Dillard Apr 2012

Madness Alone Punishes The Madman: The Search For Moral Dignity In The Court's Competency Doctrine As Applied In Capital Cases, J. Amy Dillard

All Faculty Scholarship

The purposes of the competency doctrine are to guarantee reliability in criminal prosecutions, to ensure that only those defendants who can appreciate punishment are subject to it, and to maintain moral dignity, both actual and apparent, in criminal proceedings. No matter his crime, the “madman” should not be forced to stand trial. Historically, courts viewed questions of competency as a binary choice, finding the defendant either competent or incompetent to stand trial. However, in Edwards v. Indiana, the Supreme Court conceded that it views competency on a spectrum and offered a new category of competency — borderline-competent. The Court held …

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Criminal Justice, Akhil Reed Amar Mar 2012

Criminal Justice, Akhil Reed Amar

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Raising The Bar: How Rompilla V. Beard Represents The Court's Increasing Efforts To Impose Stricter Standards For Defense Lawyering In Capital Cases, Whitney Cawley Mar 2012

Raising The Bar: How Rompilla V. Beard Represents The Court's Increasing Efforts To Impose Stricter Standards For Defense Lawyering In Capital Cases, Whitney Cawley

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Casting A Wider Net: Another Decade Of Legislative Expansion Of The Death Penalty In The United States, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier Mar 2012

Casting A Wider Net: Another Decade Of Legislative Expansion Of The Death Penalty In The United States, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier

Pepperdine Law Review

During the last decade, judges, politicians, scholars, and the general public have become troubled about problems with the death penalty in the United States. Also during this time, major studies of the death penalty have recommended a reduction in the number of statutory factors that make one eligible for the death penalty. Despite these concerns, legislatures continue to expand their capital punishment statutes to make more defendants eligible for the death penalty. This Article examines how, during a time of growing concern about innocence and arbitrariness in the death penalty system, a number of legislatures have continued to expand their …

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The T-Rex Without Teeth: Evolving Strickland V. Washington And The Test For Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel, Robert R. Rigg Mar 2012

The T-Rex Without Teeth: Evolving Strickland V. Washington And The Test For Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel, Robert R. Rigg

Pepperdine Law Review

In Strickland v. Washington the United States Supreme Court formulated the test for determining whether counsel in a criminal case is ineffective. When the Court decided Strickland it created a doctrine of enormous proportions, but with little impact--a legal tyrannosaurus rex without teeth. In the last decade, by using American Bar Association (“ABA”) standards to evaluate counsel's performance, the Court has given the T-Rex some sizable incisors. The purposes of this article are to: (1) determine how frequently the United States Supreme Court uses ABA standards in its decisions and describe briefly for what purposes the Court uses those standards; …

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Remedying Wrongful Execution, Meghan J. Ryan Feb 2012

Remedying Wrongful Execution, Meghan J. Ryan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The first legal determination of wrongful execution in the United States may very well be in the making in Texas. One of the state's district courts is in the midst of investigating whether Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004, was actually innocent. The court's investigation has been interrupted by objections from Texas prosecutors, but if the court proceeds, this may very well become a bona fide case of wrongful execution. Texas, just like other jurisdictions, is ill equipped to provide any relief for such an egregious wrong, however. This Article identifies the difficulties that the heirs, families, and …

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Your Lethal Injection Bill: A Fight To The Death Over An Expensive Yellow Jacket, Woody R. Clermont Jan 2012

Your Lethal Injection Bill: A Fight To The Death Over An Expensive Yellow Jacket, Woody R. Clermont

St. Thomas Law Review

This article reviews in detail the history of capital punishment, and the United States' constitutional proscription of "cruel and unusual" punishment. Examined are the Magna Carta of 1215, English Bill of Rights of 1689, and various bills of rights of the early American colonies, as they were critical to the Drafters' enlightened understanding of corporal punishment, which eschewed the barbaric and inhumane and culminated in the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment. Included, also, is an examination of the early cases alleging Eighth Amendment violations, for they developed the judiciary's determination of whether certain methods of capital punishment, …

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To Kill Or Not To Kill: The Unending Conundrum, S. B. Sinha Jan 2012

To Kill Or Not To Kill: The Unending Conundrum, S. B. Sinha

National Law School of India Review

Although there are numerous countries that proscribe death sentences, there is no international consensus till date regarding its legality. The Indian legal system too, has struggled with the constitutionality of death penalty and with delineating the circumstances in which it may be granted. For instance, it is true that the legendary case, Mithu v. State of Punjab, struck down mandatory death sentences under the Indian Penal Code, but mandatory death sentences provided under specific criminal legislations such as the Arms Act are still contested. It is this uneasiness in the approach of the Indian legal system to capital punishment that …

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David Baldus And The Legacy Of Mccleskey V. Kemp, Samuel R. Gross Jan 2012

David Baldus And The Legacy Of Mccleskey V. Kemp, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

The first major empirical challenge to racial discrimination in the use of the death penalty in the United States was presented in federal court in the case of William L. Maxwell, who was sentenced to death in Arkansas in 1962 for the crime of rape.1 It was based on a landmark study by Marvin Wolfgang, a distinguished criminologist who had collected data on some 3000 rape convictions from 1945 through 1965 in selected counties across eleven southern states.2 He found that black men who were convicted of rape were seven times more likely to be sentenced to death than white …

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The North Carolina Racial Justice Act: An Essay On Substantive And Procedural Fairness In Death Penalty Litigation, Neil Vidmar Jan 2012

The North Carolina Racial Justice Act: An Essay On Substantive And Procedural Fairness In Death Penalty Litigation, Neil Vidmar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Estimating The Effects Of Condemned Inmates' Last Statements On Public Opinion About The Death Penalty: A Factorial Survey Approach, Timothy P. Colyer Jan 2012

Estimating The Effects Of Condemned Inmates' Last Statements On Public Opinion About The Death Penalty: A Factorial Survey Approach, Timothy P. Colyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There has been an increase in writings that address the last statements of condemned offenders. Many of these writings suggest that exposure to the humanity sometimes exhibited in these last statements may steer public opinion against the death penalty. This dissertation tests this suggestion by exposing 400 participants to randomly generated vignettes containing various capital crimes, demographic characteristics, and last statements. The survey data are analyzed utilizing multilevel modeling. Study results include the effects of varying levels of demonstrated humanity in the last statements of condemned offenders on public opinion, and whether specific demographic characteristics appear to influence study participant …

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The Texas Deterrence Muddle, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Amanda Geller, Franklin E. Zimring Jan 2012

The Texas Deterrence Muddle, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Amanda Geller, Franklin E. Zimring

Faculty Scholarship

The ongoing debate about capital punishment in the United States juggles several contentious questions. Innocence, cost, racial fairness, proportionality, retributivist calculus, and deterrence concerns thread a literature whose richness testifies to the endurance of capital punishment in American legal and political culture. For proponents of capital punishment, the connection between the moral and utilitarian or consequentialist positions trumps all other concerns: They suggest that if the death penalty can prevent – through the incapacitation of the offender and general deterrence of would-be killers – the loss of even one innocent life from murder, then execution is a morally justified or …

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Executions In America: How Constitutional Interpretation Has Restricted Capital Punishment, Andrea Paone Jul 2011

Executions In America: How Constitutional Interpretation Has Restricted Capital Punishment, Andrea Paone

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

In upholding the constitutionality of capital punishment, the United States Supreme Court has utilized a strict construction interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, which has led the opponents of capital punishment to abandon the Due Process approach and look to the Eighth Amendment, for which the justices utilize a loose construction interpretation.

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History Repeats Itself: The Post-Furman Return To Arbitrariness In Capital Punishment, Lindsey S. Vann May 2011

History Repeats Itself: The Post-Furman Return To Arbitrariness In Capital Punishment, Lindsey S. Vann

University of Richmond Law Review

Part I of this comment provides a brief review of Furmanandthe circumstances leading to the decision. Part II discusses thefactors indicating current arbitrariness and other recurring factors surrounding the American death penalty. Part III examines the development of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause since Furman. Finally, Part IV discusses how the Supreme Court should apply its contemporary Eighth Amendment doctrine to the current circumstances surrounding the imposition of the death penalty.

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History Repeats Itself: The Post-Furman Return To Arbitrariness In Capital Punishment, Lindsey S. Vann May 2011

History Repeats Itself: The Post-Furman Return To Arbitrariness In Capital Punishment, Lindsey S. Vann

Law Student Publications

Part I of this comment provides a brief review of Furman and the circumstances leading to the decision. Part II discusses the factors indicating current arbitrariness and other recurring fac-tors surrounding the American death penalty. Part III examines the development of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause since Furman. Finally, Part IV discusses how the Supreme Court should apply its contemporary Eighth Amendment doctrine to the current circumstances surrounding the imposition of the death penalty.

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Punitive Damages Vs. The Death Penalty: In Search Of A Unified Approach To Jury Discretion And Due Process Of Law, José F. Anderson Apr 2011

Punitive Damages Vs. The Death Penalty: In Search Of A Unified Approach To Jury Discretion And Due Process Of Law, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

The role of the jury in awarding monetary damages to plaintiffs in a wide range of civil cases has captured the attention of the media, contemporary non-fiction writers, and reform-minded politicians in recent years. Particular attention has been focused on huge jury awards, which has led many commentators to criticize the wisdom of permitting juries to move so much money from one place to another. Although the right to a jury trial, and with it the exercise of broad judicial discretion, is constitutionally based, many reform efforts have moved toward removing juries from cases both as to the subject matter …

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Adolescent Brain Science After Graham V. Florida, Terry A. Maroney Mar 2011

Adolescent Brain Science After Graham V. Florida, Terry A. Maroney

Notre Dame Law Review

No abstract provided.

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And Death Shall Have No Dominion: How To Achieve The Categorical Exemption Of Mentally Retarded Defendants From Execution, J. Amy Dillard Mar 2011

And Death Shall Have No Dominion: How To Achieve The Categorical Exemption Of Mentally Retarded Defendants From Execution, J. Amy Dillard

All Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the Court’s categorical exclusion of mentally retarded defendants from execution and explores how trial courts should employ procedures to accomplish heightened reliability in the mental retardation determination; it maintains that if a mentally retarded defendant is subjected to a death sentence then the Atkins directive has been ignored. To satisfy the Atkins Court’s objective of protecting mentally retarded defendants from the “special risk of wrongful execution,” the article explores whether trial courts should engage in a unified, pre-trial competency assessment in all capital cases where the defendant asserts mental retardation as a bar to execution and how …

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Discerning What Can Be Learned From Seasoned Sentence Mitigation Practioners' Experiences Of The Accused And Their Family Members As Historians, Specifically In The Context Of Socio-Cultural Factors, In The Development Of Life History Presentation In Capital Defense Proceedings, Lisa Michele Kelly Jan 2011

Discerning What Can Be Learned From Seasoned Sentence Mitigation Practioners' Experiences Of The Accused And Their Family Members As Historians, Specifically In The Context Of Socio-Cultural Factors, In The Development Of Life History Presentation In Capital Defense Proceedings, Lisa Michele Kelly

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This qualitative study employed a study of thirteen participants, including social workers, who interview the accused and their family members in death penalty cases, to discern what could be learned from seasoned sentence mitigation practitioners' experience of defendants and their family members as historians. Those interviewed in sentence mitigation investigations are asked to discuss sensitive information while in the midst of a legal process surrounding a violent crime and rendering the accused and their family members extremely vulnerable. The information interviewees provide may have direct bearing on sentencing of the accused. In capital cases, defendants are highly unlikely to avoid …

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The Changing Nature Of Punishment: From Theology To Reform Ideology And Gallows To Penitentiaries, New England, 1674-1837, Daniel Belczak Jan 2011

The Changing Nature Of Punishment: From Theology To Reform Ideology And Gallows To Penitentiaries, New England, 1674-1837, Daniel Belczak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Criminal justice reforms of the early American Republic stand as an often examined area of research, but one source of explaining these changes is often neglected. By analyzing New England execution sermons preached from 1674 to 1825 several theological and ideological changes can be demonstrated that contributed to the growing rhetoric of reform. Such changes included opposition to the doctrine of original sin, an expansion in the understanding of salvation, and growing religious pluralism and. Due to these theological and ideological shifts, the sermons also show the movement from near universal religious support for the longstanding public execution ritual to …

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Localism And Capital Punishment, Stephen F. Smith Jan 2011

Localism And Capital Punishment, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

Professor Adam Gershowitz presents an interesting proposal to transfer from localities to states the power to enforce the death penalty. In his view, state-level enforcement would result in a more rationally applied death penalty because states would be much more likely to make capital charging decisions based on desert, without the distorting influence of the severe resource constraints applicable to all but the wealthiest of localities. As well conceived as Professor Gershowitz’s proposal is, however, I remain skeptical that statewide enforcement of the death penalty would be preferable to continued local enforcement. First, Professor Gershowitz underestimates the benefits of localism …

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Blind Dates: When Should The Statute Of Limitations Begin To Run On A Method-Of-Execution Challenge?, Ty Alper Jan 2011

Blind Dates: When Should The Statute Of Limitations Begin To Run On A Method-Of-Execution Challenge?, Ty Alper

Duke Law Journal

This Article is the first to take a comprehensive look at the issue of statute-of-limitations accrual in method-of-execution cases. In other words, when does the clock start ticking on a death row inmate's right to challenge the way in which the state intends to execute him? Most circuit courts have held that method-of-execution challenges accrue at the completion of the direct appeal process. This means that death row inmates in these jurisdictions must file method-of-execution challenges years, and sometimes even decades, before an actual execution is scheduled. Although this approach has been the subject of much criticism, even the dissenting …

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Racial Epithets In The Criminal Process, Sheri Lynn Johnson, John H. Blume, Patrick M. Wilson Jan 2011

Racial Epithets In The Criminal Process, Sheri Lynn Johnson, John H. Blume, Patrick M. Wilson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The evidence of modern bias is often difficult to document and, even when documented, still capable of racially neutral interpretations. In contrast, the use of racial epithets is neither subtle nor ambiguous. Prior to the research that generated this article and our representation of two clients whose cases involved racial epithets, we would have assumed that the use of a racial epithet by a decision-maker in a criminal trial would be rare, but that assumption turns out to be wrong. We also would have assumed that the use of an epithet by any of the decision makers would lead to …

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Domestic Violence And State Intervention In The American West And Australia, 1860-1930, Carolyn B. Ramsey Jan 2011

Domestic Violence And State Intervention In The American West And Australia, 1860-1930, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

This Article calls into question stereotypical assumptions about the presumed lack of state intervention in the family and the patriarchal violence of Anglo-American frontier societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By analyzing previously unexamined cases of domestic assault and homicide in the American West and Australia, Professor Ramsey reveals a sustained (but largely ineffectual) effort to civilize men by punishing violence against women. Husbands in both the American West and Australia were routinely arrested or summoned to court for beating their wives in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Judges, police officers, journalists, and others expressed dismay …

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