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Full-Text Articles in Law
Testing Penry And Its Progeny , Deborah W. Denno
Testing Penry And Its Progeny , Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
In Penry v. Lynaugh, the United States Supreme Court held that the Texas death penalty statute was applied unconstitutionally because the trial court gave no instructions allowing the jury to “consider and give effect to” the defendant's mitigating evidence of organic brain damage, moderate retardation, and disadvantaged background. The Court considered these mitigating factors relevant because of society's steadfast belief in the lesser culpability of defendants whose criminal acts are due to a disadvantaged background, or to emotional and mental disorders. The jury must have full consideration of such evidence in order to give its “reasoned moral response” to the …
Rodney King And The Decriminalization Of Police Brutality In America: Direct And Judicial Access To The Grand Jury As Remedies For Victims Of Police Brutality When The Prosecutor Declines To Prosecute, Peter L. Davis
Scholarly Works
This Article begins with the premise that, despite political rhetoric and occasional prosecutions to the contrary, police brutality has been effectively decriminalized in this country. The Article adopts the Rodney King case as the paradigm for examining this phenomenon. Scrutinizing the culture and semantics of police brutality, the author concludes that a double standard of criminality exists in the United States, under which different rules apply to a police than to everyone else. This double standard is socially dysfunctional. Particularly among minorities, it leads to a sense of cynicism about our legal system that can result in civil disorder when …