Law Commons^™

Bitten By The Reading Bug, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Is reading books about law helpful to law librarians? Ms. Whisner discusses why and what she likes to read, and makes recommendations about books others might find interesting.

Does Capital Punishment Have A Future? : A Resource Guide For Teachers, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

The resource guide is intended to help teachers lead students through an exploration of the application of capital punishment in the United States. It offers substantive information about landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases affirming the constitutionality of the dearth penalty, establishing limits for its imposition, and setting legal procedures for judicial review. It explores the philosophical arguments for and against the death penalty, the social context for the death penalty debate, and current international perspectives. Understanding capital punishment and the issues it raises for the American legal system is necessary for students to become fully functioning citizens in a constitutional …

Victim Impact Statements In Capital Trials: A Selected Bibliography, Jean M. Callihan

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Look Who's Extrapolating: A Reply To Hoffmann, Valerie West, Jeffery Fagan, James S. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

In late March, a reporter called with news of a pirated copy of Professor Joseph Hoffinann's soon-to-be-published "attack" on our study, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995. Did we care to comment? Obtaining our own copy revealed that Professor Hoffmann's fusillade missed its mark (he misstates what we did) and boomeranged (his mischaracterizations of our analysis accurately describe his own). We do care to comment, and Hoffmann and the Indiana Law Journal have graciously let us do so.

Hoffmann's main claim is that we "extrapolated" the 68% rate of reversible error we reported for capital verdicts …