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Full-Text Articles in Law
Souter Passant, Scalia Rampant: Combat In The Marsh, Samuel R. Gross
Souter Passant, Scalia Rampant: Combat In The Marsh, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
Kansas law provides that unless a capital sentencing jury concludes that the mitigating factors that apply to the defendant’s crime outweigh the aggravating factors, it must sentence the defendant to death. The Kansas Supreme Court held that this law violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because it “impermissibly mandates the death penalty when the jury finds that the mitigating and aggravating circumstances are in equipoise.” On June 26, in Kansas v. Marsh, the Supreme Court reversed in a 5 to 4 opinion by Justice Thomas.
Less Is Better: Justice Stevens And The Narrowed Death Penalty, James S. Liebman, Lawrence C. Marshall
Less Is Better: Justice Stevens And The Narrowed Death Penalty, James S. Liebman, Lawrence C. Marshall
Faculty Scholarship
In a recent speech to the American Bar Association, Justice John Paul Stevens "issued an unusually stinging criticism of capital punishment." Although he "stopped short of calling for an end to the death penalty," Justice Stevens catalogued a number of its "'serious flaws,'" including several procedures that the full Court has reviewed and upheld over his dissent – selecting capital jurors in a manner that excludes those with qualms about the death penalty, permitting elected state judges to second-guess jurors when they decline to impose the death penalty, permitting states to premise death verdicts on "victim impact statements," tolerating sub-par …