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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Tale Of Two (And Possibly Three) Atkins: Intellectual Disability And Capital Punishment Twelve Years After The Supreme Court's Creation Of A Categorical Bar, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Paul Marcus, Emily C. Paavola
A Tale Of Two (And Possibly Three) Atkins: Intellectual Disability And Capital Punishment Twelve Years After The Supreme Court's Creation Of A Categorical Bar, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Paul Marcus, Emily C. Paavola
Sheri Lynn Johnson
This article examines empirically the capital cases decided by the lower courts since the United States Supreme Court created the categorical ban against the execution of persons with intellectual disability twelve years ago in the Atkins decision.
Implicit Racial Attitudes Of Death Penalty Lawyers, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Implicit Racial Attitudes Of Death Penalty Lawyers, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Sheri Lynn Johnson
Defense attorneys commonly suspect that the defendant's race plays a role in prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty, especially when the victim of the crime was white. When the defendant is convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, it is equally common for such attorneys to question the racial attitudes of the jury. These suspicions are not merely partisan conjectures; ample historical, statistical, and anecdotal evidence supports the inference that race matters in capital cases. Even the General Accounting Office of the United States concludes as much. Despite McCleskey v. Kemp, in which the United States Supreme Court …
An Empirical Look At Atkins V. Virginia And Its Application In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Christopher Seeds
An Empirical Look At Atkins V. Virginia And Its Application In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Christopher Seeds
Sheri Lynn Johnson
In Atkins vs. Virginia, the Supreme Court declared that evolving standards of decency and the Eighth Amendment prohibit the death penalty for individuals with intellectual disability (formerly, "mental retardation"). Both supporters and opponents of the categorical exemption, however, have criticized the Atkins opinion. The Atkins dissent, for example, urged that the decision would open the gates of litigation to a flood of frivolous claims. Another prominent criticism, heard from those more supportive of the Court's ruling, has been that the language the Court used communicating that states must "generally conform" to the clinical definitions of mental retardation is ambiguous enough …
Correcting Deadly Confusion: Responding To Jury Inquiries In Capital Cases, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Paul Marcus
Correcting Deadly Confusion: Responding To Jury Inquiries In Capital Cases, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Paul Marcus
Sheri Lynn Johnson
In Weeks v. Angelone, 528 U.S. 225 (2000), the members of the capital sentencing jury asked for clarification of the jury instructions on the essential question of whether they were required to sentence Weeks to death upon the finding of certain aggravating factors. The judge merely informed the jurors to reread the instruction. The jurors returned with a death penalty sentence. The Supreme Court held that these jurors likely understood the instructions and at most Weeks had shown a slight possibility that the jurors believed they were precluded from considering mitigating evidence. However, the results of a mock jury study …
Post-Mccleskey Racial Discrimination Claims In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Post-Mccleskey Racial Discrimination Claims In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Sheri Lynn Johnson
In federal habeas corpus proceedings, Earl Matthews, an African American, South Carolina death row inmate, alleged that his death sentence was the result of invidious racial discrimination that violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To support his contention, Matthews presented statistical evidence showing that in Charleston County, where a jury convicted him and sentenced him to death, the prosecutor was far more likely to seek a death sentence for a Black defendant accused of killing a white person than for any other racial combination of victims and defendants, and also that such a Black defendant was more …
Black Innocence And The White Jury, Sheri Johnson
Black Innocence And The White Jury, Sheri Johnson
Sheri Lynn Johnson
Racial prejudice has come under increasingly close scrutiny during the past thirty years, yet its influence on the decisionmaking of criminal juries remains largely hidden from judicial and critical examination. In this Article, Professor Johnson takes a close look at this neglected area. She first sets forth a large body of social science research that reveals a widespread tendency among whites to convict black defendants in instances in which white defendants would be acquitted. Next, she argues that none of the existing techniques for eliminating the influence of racial bias on criminal trials adequately protects minority-race defendants. She contends that …
Killing The Non-Willing: Atkins, The Volitionally Incapacitated, And The Death Penalty, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Killing The Non-Willing: Atkins, The Volitionally Incapacitated, And The Death Penalty, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Sheri Lynn Johnson
Jamie Wilson, nineteen years old and severely mentally ill, walked into a school cafeteria and started shooting. Two children died, and Jamie was charged with two counts of capital murder. Because he admitted his guilt, the only issue at his trial was the appropriate punishment. The trial judge assigned to his case, after hearing expert testimony on his mental state, found that mental illness rendered Jamie unable to conform his conduct to the requirements of law at the time of the crime—not impaired by his mental illness in his ability to control his behavior, but unable to control his behavior. …
Of Atkins And Men: Deviations From Clinical Definitions Of Mental Retardation In Death Penalty Cases, John H. Blume, Sheri Johnson, Christopher W. Seeds
Of Atkins And Men: Deviations From Clinical Definitions Of Mental Retardation In Death Penalty Cases, John H. Blume, Sheri Johnson, Christopher W. Seeds
Sheri Lynn Johnson
Under Atkins v. Virginia, the Eighth Amendment exempts from execution individuals who meet the clinical definitions of mental retardation set forth by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and the American Psychiatric Association. Both define mental retardation as significantly subaverage intellectual functioning accompanied by significant limitations in adaptive functioning, originating before the age of 18. Since Atkins, most jurisdictions have adopted definitions of mental retardation that conform to those definitions. But some states, looking often to stereotypes of persons with mental retardation, apply exclusion criteria that deviate from and are more restrictive than the accepted scientific and clinical …
Competent Capital Representation: The Necessity Of Knowing And Heeding What Jurors Tell Us About Mitigation, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Scott E. Sundby
Competent Capital Representation: The Necessity Of Knowing And Heeding What Jurors Tell Us About Mitigation, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Scott E. Sundby
Sheri Lynn Johnson
Capital defense counsel have a duty at every stage of the case to take advantage of all appropriate opportunities to argue why death is not a suitable punishment for their particular client. But that duty can hardly be discharged effectively if the arguments are made in ignorance of available information concerning how persuasive they are likely to be to their audience. Heeding that simple proposition we present lessons from the work of the Capital Jury Project, an ongoing empirical research effort built upon extended interviews with people who have actually sat on capital juries. We find that the standards for …
The Delaware Death Penalty: An Empirical Study, Sheri Johnson, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Valerie P. Hans, Martin T. Wells
The Delaware Death Penalty: An Empirical Study, Sheri Johnson, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Valerie P. Hans, Martin T. Wells
Sheri Lynn Johnson
For the last five years, we have conducted an empirical study of the “modern era” of capital punishment in Delaware. By “modern era,” we refer to the time period after the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in Furman v.Georgia, which invalidated all then-existing state death penalty regimes. Some readers might ask, “Why Delaware?” They might observe that it is a small state and is not a significant national player in terms of death sentences imposed or death row inmates executed. While both are true, several features of Delaware’s capital punishment system intrigue us. First, Delaware has a high death sentencing rate. …
Unconscious Racism And The Criminal Law, Sheri Johnson
Unconscious Racism And The Criminal Law, Sheri Johnson
Sheri Lynn Johnson
No abstract provided.
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
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
Sheri Lynn Johnson
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 capital …
Back To A Future: Reversing Keith Simpson's Death Sentence And Making Peace With The Victim's Family Through Post-Conviction Investigation, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Back To A Future: Reversing Keith Simpson's Death Sentence And Making Peace With The Victim's Family Through Post-Conviction Investigation, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Sheri Lynn Johnson
In 1993, Keith Simpson was arrested for the murder of Joe Harrison; in 2006, he was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole in 2022. Between those two events, Simpson was sentenced to death, had his death sentence vacated by the post-conviction relief court, reached a plea agreement with the victim's family and the new Solicitor, saw the agreement invalidated when the Attorney General's office overrode the family and the Solicitor by appealing the post-conviction court's decision, lost the lower court's decision to an appellate reversal, and won a cross-appeal for a new trial. You just never know. You …