Law Commons^™

Doctors, Discipline, And The Death Penalty: Professional Implications Of Safe Harbor Statutes, Nadia N. Sawicki

All Faculty Scholarship

State capital punishment statutes generally contemplate the involvement of medical providers, and courts have acknowledged that the qualifications of lethal injection personnel have a constitutionally relevant dimension. However, the American Medical Association has consistently voiced its opposition to any medical involvement in executions. In recent years, some states have responded to this conflict by adopting statutory mechanisms to encourage medical participation in lethal injections. Foremost among these are safe harbor policies, which prohibit state medical boards from taking disciplinary action against licensed medical personnel who participate in executions. This Article posits that safe harbor policies, as limitations on medical board …

Petition For Rehearing, Kennedy V. Louisiana, No. 07-343 (U.S. July 21, 2008), Viet D. Dinh, Neal K. Katyal

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Amici Curiae Brief Of New York Law School Professors In People V. Harris: Constitutionality Of The New York Death Penalty Statute Under The State Constitution's Cruel And Unusual Punishments And Antidiscrimination Clauses, Anthony G. Amsterdam, Ursula Bentele, Vivian Berger, John H. Blume, Peggy Davis, Deborah Denno, Markus Dubber, Stephen Ellmann, Deborah Fins, Eric M. Freedman, Stephen P. Garvey, Jack Greenberg, Randy Hertz, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Richard Klein, James Liebman, Peter Neufeld, Barry Scheck, Bryan Stevenson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Amici are teachers in New York law schools who have studied the operation of the death penalty for the purpose of teaching the subject, writing about it in scholarly journals, or representing persons accused or convicted of capital crimes. Most of us have worked in the field both as academics and as pro bono counsel for condemned inmates. Collectively, we have had first-hand experience in hundreds of death cases, in dozens of jurisdictions, extending over more than a third of a century.

Our experience has convinced us that capital punishment cannot be administered with the fairness, reliability, and freedom from …