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Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Law
Judges Do It Better: Why Judges Can (And Should) Decide Life Or Death, Andrew R. Ford
Judges Do It Better: Why Judges Can (And Should) Decide Life Or Death, Andrew R. Ford
Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)
Following its decision in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court of the United States has attempted to standardize procedures that states use to subject offenders to the ultimate penalty. In practice, this attempt at standardization has divided capital sentencing into two distinct parts: the death eligibility decision and the death selection decision. The eligibility decision addresses whether the sentencer may impose the death penalty, while the selection decision determines who among that limited subset of eligible offenders is sentenced to death. In Ring v. Arizona, the Court held for the first time that the Sixth Amendment right to …
Death Penalty; Cruel And Unusual Punishment; Individualized Sentencing Determination; Lockett V. Ohio; Bell V. Ohio, James C. Ellerhorst
Death Penalty; Cruel And Unusual Punishment; Individualized Sentencing Determination; Lockett V. Ohio; Bell V. Ohio, James C. Ellerhorst
Akron Law Review
“In Bell v. Ohio and Lockett v. Ohio the United States Supreme Court found the sentencing provisions of the Ohio capital punishment statute to be incompatible with the eighth and fourteenth amendments which prohibit cruel and unusual punishment. These two opinions represent the most recent attempt by the Supreme Court to explain what elements must be included in a constitutionally valid capital punishment statute.”
Death-Innocence And The Law Of Habeas Corpus, Stephen P. Garvey
Death-Innocence And The Law Of Habeas Corpus, Stephen P. Garvey
Stephen P. Garvey
The legal space between a sentence of death and the execution chamber is occupied by an intricate network of procedural rules. On average, it currently takes between six and seven years to traverse this space, but this interval is expected to shrink. Federal habeas corpus, an important part of this space, is studded more and more with procedural obstacles that bar the federal courts from entertaining the merits of a defendant's claims. By design, these barriers foreclose federal review in order to protect the state's interests in the finality of its criminal convictions, as well as to display healthy respect …
Virginia's Capital Jurors, Stephen P. Garvey, Paul Marcus
Virginia's Capital Jurors, Stephen P. Garvey, Paul Marcus
Stephen P. Garvey
Next to Texas, no state has executed more capital defendants than Virginia. Moreover, the likelihood of a death sentence actually being carried out is greater in Virginia than it is elsewhere, while the length of time between the imposition of a death sentence and its actual execution is shorter. Virginia has thus earned a reputation among members of the defense bar as being among the worst of the death penalty states. Yet insofar as these facts about Virginia's death penalty relate primarily to the behavior of state and federal appellate courts, they suggest that what makes Virginia's death penalty unique …
Knockin' On Heaven's Door: Rethinking The Role Of Religion In Death Penalty Cases, Gary J. Simson, Stephen P. Garvey
Knockin' On Heaven's Door: Rethinking The Role Of Religion In Death Penalty Cases, Gary J. Simson, Stephen P. Garvey
Stephen P. Garvey
Religion has played a prominent role at various points of capital trials. In jury selection, peremptory challenges have been exercised against prospective jurors on the basis of their religion. At the sentencing phase, defendants have offered as mitigating evidence proof of their religiosity, and the prosecution has introduced evidence of the victim's religiosity. In closing argument, quotations from the Bible and other appeals to religion have long been common. During deliberations, jurors have engaged in group prayer and tried to sway one another with quotes from scripture. Such practices have not gone unquestioned. Rather remarkably, however, the questions have almost …
Constitutional Concerns About Capital Punishment: The Death Penalty Statute In New York State, Richard Klein
Constitutional Concerns About Capital Punishment: The Death Penalty Statute In New York State, Richard Klein
Richard Daniel Klein
No abstract provided.
Virginia's Capital Jurors, Stephen P. Garvey, Paul Marcus
Virginia's Capital Jurors, Stephen P. Garvey, Paul Marcus
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Next to Texas, no state has executed more capital defendants than Virginia. Moreover, the likelihood of a death sentence actually being carried out is greater in Virginia than it is elsewhere, while the length of time between the imposition of a death sentence and its actual execution is shorter. Virginia has thus earned a reputation among members of the defense bar as being among the worst of the death penalty states. Yet insofar as these facts about Virginia's death penalty relate primarily to the behavior of state and federal appellate courts, they suggest that what makes Virginia's death penalty unique …
Knockin' On Heaven's Door: Rethinking The Role Of Religion In Death Penalty Cases, Gary J. Simson, Stephen P. Garvey
Knockin' On Heaven's Door: Rethinking The Role Of Religion In Death Penalty Cases, Gary J. Simson, Stephen P. Garvey
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Religion has played a prominent role at various points of capital trials. In jury selection, peremptory challenges have been exercised against prospective jurors on the basis of their religion. At the sentencing phase, defendants have offered as mitigating evidence proof of their religiosity, and the prosecution has introduced evidence of the victim's religiosity. In closing argument, quotations from the Bible and other appeals to religion have long been common. During deliberations, jurors have engaged in group prayer and tried to sway one another with quotes from scripture.
Such practices have not gone unquestioned. Rather remarkably, however, the questions have almost …
"As The Gentle Rain From Heaven": Mercy In Capital Sentencing, Stephen P. Garvey
"As The Gentle Rain From Heaven": Mercy In Capital Sentencing, Stephen P. Garvey
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Our constitutional law of capital sentencing does not understand Shakespeare's "gentle rain from heaven." Mercy confuses and befuddles it. The jury that sentenced Albert Brown to death was instructed that "'mere ... sympathy"' should not play on its judgment. Brown claimed this instruction violated his Eighth Amendment rights, but the Supreme Court disagreed. Some five years later, Justice Scalia dissented when the Court reversed Derrick Morgan's death sentence. According to Justice Scalia, the Court had held that no "merciless" juror could sit in judgment of a capital defendant. The Constitution, he thought, demanded no such thing. These dissents, one embracing …
Procedural Labyrinths And The Injustice Of Death: A Critique Of Death Penalty Habeas Corpus (Part Two), Alan W. Clarke
Procedural Labyrinths And The Injustice Of Death: A Critique Of Death Penalty Habeas Corpus (Part Two), Alan W. Clarke
University of Richmond Law Review
The following is part two of a two-part article that critiques death penalty habeas corpus. Partone of this article included discussionsof the ineffective assistanceof counsel and the federal habeas corpus exhaustion requirement. 29 U. RICH. L. REV. 1327 (1995). Part two of this article,which follows, discusses issues related to retroactivity in habeas corpus proceedings and procedural default.
Constitutional Concerns About Capital Punishment: The Death Penalty Statute In New York State, Richard Klein
Constitutional Concerns About Capital Punishment: The Death Penalty Statute In New York State, Richard Klein
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
Death-Innocence And The Law Of Habeas Corpus, Stephen P. Garvey
Death-Innocence And The Law Of Habeas Corpus, Stephen P. Garvey
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The legal space between a sentence of death and the execution chamber is occupied by an intricate network of procedural rules. On average, it currently takes between six and seven years to traverse this space, but this interval is expected to shrink. Federal habeas corpus, an important part of this space, is studded more and more with procedural obstacles that bar the federal courts from entertaining the merits of a defendant's claims. By design, these barriers foreclose federal review in order to protect the state's interests in the finality of its criminal convictions, as well as to display healthy respect …
The Eighth Amendment And Capital Punishment Of Juveniles, Victor L. Streib
The Eighth Amendment And Capital Punishment Of Juveniles, Victor L. Streib
Cleveland State Law Review
The practice of imposing the death penalty for crimes committed while under the age of eighteen has occurred sporadically but persistently throughout American history. It gives every indication of continuing in this mode under current law and practice. Greatly differing approaches are followed by the various states as to the authorization and imposition of capital punishment for juveniles. This article explores the existence of a constitutionally-mandated minimum age below which the states may not venture in carrying out this practice. If such a nationwide minimum age exists or should exist, its justification can be found in current interpretations of the …
Questions Surrounding Virginia's Death Penalty, James T. Lloyd Jr.
Questions Surrounding Virginia's Death Penalty, James T. Lloyd Jr.
University of Richmond Law Review
On August 10, 1982, Frank J. Coppola died in Virginia's electric chair. His was the fifth execution since the 1976 Supreme Court decision holding that a punishment of death was not unconstitutional per se. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, Coppola's was the first execution in over a decade.