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Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Law
Atkins V. Virginia At Twenty: Still Adaptive Deficits, Still In The Developmental Period, Sheri Lynn Johnson, John H. Blume, Brendan Van Winkle
Atkins V. Virginia At Twenty: Still Adaptive Deficits, Still In The Developmental Period, Sheri Lynn Johnson, John H. Blume, Brendan Van Winkle
Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice
Twenty years ago, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Eighth Amendment prohibited states from executing persons with intellectual disability. While the Court’s decision is laudable and has saved many of the most vulnerable persons from the executioner, its effect has been undermined by recalcitrant states attempting to exploit language in the opinion permitting states to create procedures to implement the (then) new categorical prohibition. In this article, we examine how some states have adopted procedures which are fundamentally inconsistent with the clinical consensus understanding of the disability and how one state, …
Homes, History, And Shadows: Select Criminal Law And Procedure Cases From The Supreme Court’S 2020-21 Term, Eve Brensike Primus, Lily Sawyer-Kaplan
Homes, History, And Shadows: Select Criminal Law And Procedure Cases From The Supreme Court’S 2020-21 Term, Eve Brensike Primus, Lily Sawyer-Kaplan
Articles
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020 and the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace her solidified a 6-3 majority on the Court for Republican appointees and is already affecting how the Court approaches and decides its criminal law and procedure cases. Justice Ginsburg, a strong advocate for equality and fair treatment, generally construed criminal statutes narrowly and stressed the importance of defendants’ procedural rights. Justice Barrett is an originalist who will look to history to seek answers on the scope of criminal procedure amendments. The combined appointments of Justice Gorsuch and Justice Barrett mean …
Banning Solitary For Prisoners With Mental Illness: The Blurred Line Between Physical And Psychological Harm, Rosalind Dillon
Banning Solitary For Prisoners With Mental Illness: The Blurred Line Between Physical And Psychological Harm, Rosalind Dillon
Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy
No abstract provided.
Justice Scalia's Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence: An Unabashed Foe Of Criminal Defendants, Michael Vitiello
Justice Scalia's Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence: An Unabashed Foe Of Criminal Defendants, Michael Vitiello
Akron Law Review
Justice Scalia’s death has already produced a host of commentary on his career. Depending on the issue, Justice Scalia’s legacy is quite complicated. Justice Scalia’s commitment to originalism explains at least some of his pro-defendant positions. Some of his supporters point to such examples to support a claim that Justice Scalia was principled in his application of his jurisprudential philosophy. However, in one area, Justice Scalia was an unabashed foe of criminal defendants: his Eighth Amendment jurisprudential dealing with terms of imprisonment. There, based on his reading of the historical record, he argued that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel …
The Supreme Court And The Transformation Of Juvenile Sentencing, Elizabeth S. Scott, Thomas Grisso, Marsha Levick, Laurence Steinberg
The Supreme Court And The Transformation Of Juvenile Sentencing, Elizabeth S. Scott, Thomas Grisso, Marsha Levick, Laurence Steinberg
Faculty Scholarship
In the past decade, the Supreme Court has transformed the constitutional landscape of juvenile crime regulation. In three strongly worded opinions, the Court held that imposing harsh criminal sentences on juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In combination, these cases create a special status for juveniles under Eighth Amendment doctrine as a category of offenders whose culpability is mitigated by their youth and immaturity, even for the most serious offenses. The Court also emphasized that juveniles are more likely to reform than adult offenders, and that most should be given a meaningful opportunity to …