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Full-Text Articles in Law
Foreword: The Perpetual Controversy, Christopher M. Johnson
Foreword: The Perpetual Controversy, Christopher M. Johnson
The University of New Hampshire Law Review
[Excerpt] “Two qualities of American capital punishment perhaps explain its ability to command the attention of the Court, year by year, decade after decade. First, an exceptionally talented and dedicated specialist capital defense bar continually mounts new challenges to the institution of the death penalty. This year, for example, we await a decision from the Supreme Court on the claim that the lethal injection method of execution violates the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Constitution. Never before has the Supreme Court confronted this claim; indeed, not for more than a hundred years has the Supreme Court addressed a …
The Emerging Death Penalty Jurisprudence Of The Roberts Court, Kenneth C. Haas
The Emerging Death Penalty Jurisprudence Of The Roberts Court, Kenneth C. Haas
The University of New Hampshire Law Review
[Excerpt] “In 1976, four years after finding the nation’s death penalty laws to be constitutionally flawed, the U.S. Supreme Court established the parameters of modern American death penalty jurisprudence. Since then the Court has gone through several phases. The Court proceeded cautiously from 1977 to 1982, limiting the death penalty to those who committed murder in a manner deemed especially heinous and despicable by judges and juries, requiring even-handedness and consistency in capital sentencing, and insisting that sentencing authorities examine the individual characteristics of each offender and the particular circumstances of his crime. From 1983 to 2001, however, the Court …
The Abolitionist’S Dilemma: Establishing The Standards For The Evolving Standards Of Decency, Dwight Aarons
The Abolitionist’S Dilemma: Establishing The Standards For The Evolving Standards Of Decency, Dwight Aarons
The University of New Hampshire Law Review
[Excerpt] “For those who believe that the death penalty should be declared unconstitutional and that the U.S. Supreme Court is the institution that should make that declaration, these are interesting times. On one hand, the Rehnquist Court, which had previously not been a reliable friend of criminal defendants, in 2002, ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded defendants, and in 2005 it came to the same conclusion as to defendants who committed a capital crime before his or her eighteenth birthday. On the other hand, close scrutiny of these opinions evidences that the Court all but casts aside …