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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Supreme Court And The Politics Of Death, Stephen F. Smith
The Supreme Court And The Politics Of Death, Stephen F. Smith
Stephen F. Smith
This article explores the evolving role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the politics of death. By constitutionalizing the death penalty in the 1970s, the Supreme Court unintentionally set into motion political forces that have seriously undermined the Court's vision of a death penalty that is fairly administered and imposed only on the worst offenders. With the death penalty established as a highly salient political issue, politicians - legislators, prosecutors, and governors - have strong institutional incentives to make death sentences easier to achieve and carry out. The result of this vicious cycle is not only more executions, but less …
Correcting A Fatal Lottery: A Proposal To Apply The Civil Discrimination Standards To The Death Penalty, Joseph Thomas
Correcting A Fatal Lottery: A Proposal To Apply The Civil Discrimination Standards To The Death Penalty, Joseph Thomas
Joseph Thomas
Claims of discrimination are treated differently in the death penalty context. Discrimination in employment, housing, civil rights and jury venire all use a burden-shifting framework with the preponderance of the evidence as the standard. Discrimination that occurs in death penalty proceedings is the exception to the rule -- the framework offers less protections; there is only one phase of argumentation, with a heightened evidentiary standard of “exceptionally clear proof.” With disparate levels of protections against discrimination, the standard and framework for adjudicating claims of discrimination in the death penalty is unconstitutional.
Death is different as a punishment. But does discrimination …
Correcting A Fatal Lottery: A Proposal To Apply The Civil Discrimination Standards To The Death Penalty, Joseph Thomas
Correcting A Fatal Lottery: A Proposal To Apply The Civil Discrimination Standards To The Death Penalty, Joseph Thomas
Joseph Thomas
Claims of discrimination are treated differently in the death penalty context. Discrimination in employment, housing, civil rights and jury venire all use a burden-shifting framework with the preponderance of the evidence as the standard. Discrimination that occurs in death penalty proceedings is the exception to the rule -- the framework offers less protections; there is only one phase of argumentation, with a heightened evidentiary standard of “exceptionally clear proof.” With disparate levels of protections against discrimination, the standard and framework for adjudicating claims of discrimination in the death penalty is unconstitutional.
Death is different as a punishment. But does discrimination …
A Criminal Quartet: The Supreme Court's Resolution Of Four Critical Issues In The Criminal Justice System, Richard Klein
A Criminal Quartet: The Supreme Court's Resolution Of Four Critical Issues In The Criminal Justice System, Richard Klein
Richard Daniel Klein
No abstract provided.
Fifteen Years And Death: Double Jeopardy, Multiple Punishments, And Extended Stays On Death Row, Michael J. Johnson
Fifteen Years And Death: Double Jeopardy, Multiple Punishments, And Extended Stays On Death Row, Michael J. Johnson
Michael P. Johnson
Fifteen Years and Death is a Note that considers a completely novel application of the Double Jeopardy Clause to excessive time on death row. Traditionally, death penalty opponents have attacked the now fifteen-year average wait time on death row as a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments, but this argument has fallen flat time and time again as courts have been reluctant to find merely living in prison to be “cruel” or “unusual.” Most courts do admit, however, that such time on death row does constitute some sort of punishment. As originally imagined, the Double …
Criminal Wrongs And Constitutional Rights: A View From India, Shubhankar Dam
Criminal Wrongs And Constitutional Rights: A View From India, Shubhankar Dam
Shubhankar Dam
This essay offers an overview of how ideas of constitutionalism, rule of law and fundamental rights contributed to the development of criminal law in India. Various courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, have summoned these broad constitutional concepts to understand, interpret and develop criminal law doctrines. But they are also drawing on these concepts to increasingly address “structural” issues of the criminal justice system - the very apparatus responsible for implementing the doctrines.
Empathy For Psychopaths: Using Fmri Brain Scans To Plea For Leniency In Death Penalty Cases, Kimberly D. Phillips
Empathy For Psychopaths: Using Fmri Brain Scans To Plea For Leniency In Death Penalty Cases, Kimberly D. Phillips
Kimberly D Phillips