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Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Law

When Balance And Fairness Collide: An Argument For Execution Impact Evidence In Capital Trials, Wayne A. Logan Dec 1999

When Balance And Fairness Collide: An Argument For Execution Impact Evidence In Capital Trials, Wayne A. Logan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A central precept of death penalty jurisprudence is that only the "death worthy" should be condemned, based on a "reasoned moral response" by the sentencing authority. Over the past decade, however, the Supreme Court has distanced itself from its painstaking efforts in the 1970s to calibrate death decision making in the name of fairness. Compelling proof of this shift is manifest in the Court's decisions to permit victim impact evidence in capital trials, and to allow jurors to be instructed that sympathy for capital defendants is not to influence capital decisions. This Article examines a novel strategy now being employed …


When Balance And Fairness Collide: An Argument For Execution Impact Evidence In Capital Trials, Wayne A. Logan Oct 1999

When Balance And Fairness Collide: An Argument For Execution Impact Evidence In Capital Trials, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

A central precept of death penalty jurisprudence is that only the "death worthy" should be condemned, based on a "reasoned moral response" by the sentencing authority. Over the past decade, however, the Supreme Court has distanced itself from its painstaking efforts in the 1970s to calibrate death decision making in the name of fairness. Compelling proof of this shift is manifest in the Court's decisions to permit victim impact evidence in capital trials, and to allow jurors to be instructed that sympathy for capital defendants is not to influence capital decisions. This Article examines a novel strategy now being employed …


The Abolition Of The Death Penalty: Does "Abolition" Really Mean What You Think It Means?, Christy A. Short Apr 1999

The Abolition Of The Death Penalty: Does "Abolition" Really Mean What You Think It Means?, Christy A. Short

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.


Through The Past Darkly: A Survey Of The Uses And Abuses Of Victim Impact Evidence In Capital Trials, Wayne A. Logan Jan 1999

Through The Past Darkly: A Survey Of The Uses And Abuses Of Victim Impact Evidence In Capital Trials, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

This Article examines the recent history of victim impact evidence in capital sentencing, as permitted by the United States Supreme Court's landmark 1991 decision in Payne v. Tennessee, which overruled two other recent holdings of the Court squarely prohibiting such evidence.


Is Capital Punishment A Deterrent To Crime?, Greg Warren Colyer Jan 1999

Is Capital Punishment A Deterrent To Crime?, Greg Warren Colyer

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.


Childhood Abuse And Adult Murder: Implications For The Death Penalty, Phyllis L. Crocker Jan 1999

Childhood Abuse And Adult Murder: Implications For The Death Penalty, Phyllis L. Crocker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

A jury that convicts a defendant of capital murder must then decide whether that defendant deserves a life sentence or death. Mitigating evidence is crucial to the defense at this stage because such evidence may provide the jury with a basis for imposing a life sentence. In this article, Professor Crocker argues that evidence that a defendant was abused as a child is paradigmatic mitigating evidence. A detailed presentation of the defendant's childhood experience and a cogent explanation of its long-term repercussions will enable the jury to understand why the defendant committed the crime, perhaps allowing the jury to sympathize …


Another Look At Evolving Standards: Will Decency Prevail Against Executing The Mentally Retarded?, Bryan Lester Dupler Jan 1999

Another Look At Evolving Standards: Will Decency Prevail Against Executing The Mentally Retarded?, Bryan Lester Dupler

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.


Life, Death And The Law - And Why Capital Punishment Is Legally Insupportable , Peter Fitzpatrick Jan 1999

Life, Death And The Law - And Why Capital Punishment Is Legally Insupportable , Peter Fitzpatrick

Cleveland State Law Review

Given that law has an integral commitment to life, in this lecture I want to show how the law should manifest something of a fundamental dissonance, even a terminal incoherence, when law is called upon to deal death. That is what happens in the judicial discourse on the death penalty in the United States. I will approach this demonstration in a way that may at first seem paradoxical, in a way that will bring out the deep affinity between law and death. That affinity is one in which death is, in a sense, the limit of law; a limit that …


The Fourth Circuit's "Double-Edged Sword": Eviscerating The Right To Present Mitigating Evidence And Beheading The Right To The Assistance Of Counsel, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson Jan 1999

The Fourth Circuit's "Double-Edged Sword": Eviscerating The Right To Present Mitigating Evidence And Beheading The Right To The Assistance Of Counsel, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Even before the sea change of Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court recognized not only an indigent’s right to the assistance of counsel in capital cases, but also his right to the effective assistance of counsel in capital cases. Since those auspicious beginnings, the Court has dramatically broadened the right to present mitigating evidence in the sentencing phase of a capital trial, thereby increasing the need for the guiding hand of counsel in capital sentencing. Thus, it is particularly tragic that the Fourth Circuit’s swiftly evolving approach to the prejudice prong of the ineffective assistance of counsel standard precludes …


Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross Jan 1999

Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

In case after case, erroneous conviction for capital murder has been proven. I contend that these are not disconnected accidents, but systematic consequences of the nature of homicice prosecution in the general and capital prosecution in particular - that in this respect, as in others, death distorts and undermines the course of the law.