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Full-Text Articles in Law
Execution Methods In A Nutshell, Deborah W. Denno
Execution Methods In A Nutshell, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Johnson V. Kelley, Bruce Green
Lethal Injection Chaos Post-Baze, Deborah W. Denno
Lethal Injection Chaos Post-Baze, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
In 2008, with Baze v. Rees, the Supreme Court broke decades of silence regarding state execution methods to declare Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol constitutional, yet the opinion itself did not offer much guidance. In the six years after Baze, legal challenges to lethal injection soared as states scrambled to quell litigation by modifying their lethal injection protocols. My unprecedented study of over 300 cases citing Baze reveals that such modifications have occurred with alarming frequency. Moreover, even as states purportedly rely on the Baze opinion, they have changed their lethal injection protocols in inconsistent ways that bear little …
What Real-World Criminal Cases Tell Us About Genetics Evidence, Deborah W. Denno
What Real-World Criminal Cases Tell Us About Genetics Evidence, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
This Article, which is part of a symposium on "Law and Ethics at the Frontier of Genetic Technology," examines an unprecedented experimental study published in Science. The Science study indicated that psychopathic criminal offenders were more likely to receive lighter sentences if a judge was aware of genetic and neurobiological explanations for the offender’s psychopathy. This Article contends that the study’s conclusions derive from substantial flaws in the study’s design and methodology. The hypothetical case upon which the study is based captures just one narrow and unrepresentative component of how genetic and neurobiological information operates, and the study suffers from …
Revisiting The Legal Link Between Genetics And Crime, Deborah W. Denno
Revisiting The Legal Link Between Genetics And Crime, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
Unwarranted constraints on the admissibility of genetics evidence in death penalty cases can undercut some defendants' efforts to fight their executions. For example, genetics evidence can help validate some traditionally accepted mitigating factors (such as certain psychiatric or behavioral disorders) that can otherwise be difficult for defendants to prove. By imposing unreasonable limitations on genetics arguments, the criminal justice system may be undermining the very principles and progressive thinking the cap on genetics evidence was originally intended to achieve. Part II of this article briefly reviews the facts and legal arguments in Mobley v. State. Part III addresses the primary …
When Legislatures Delegate Death: The Troubling Paradox Behind State Uses Of Electocution And Lethal Injection And What It Says About Us, Deborah W. Denno
When Legislatures Delegate Death: The Troubling Paradox Behind State Uses Of Electocution And Lethal Injection And What It Says About Us, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
This article discusses the paradoxical motivations and problems behind legislative changes from one method of execution to the next, and particularly moves from electrocution to lethal injection. This article first examines the constitutionality of electrocution, contending that a modern Eighth Amendment analysis of a range of factors, such as legislative trends toward lethal injection, indicates that electrocution is cruel and unusual. It then provides an Eighth Amendment review of lethal injection, demonstrating that injection also involves unnecessary pain, the risk of such pain, and a loss of dignity. The article next presents the author's study of the most current protocols …
Adieu To Electrocution, Deborah W. Denno
Adieu To Electrocution, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
This Article contends that there is no moral or legal reason to retain electrocution, particularly because other execution methods are available. It is clear that at some point soon, electrocution will no longer exist in this country and, as a result, throughout the world. By eliminating this perplexing vestige, the other problems with the death penalty may appear all that more offensive.
Getting To Death: Are Executions Constitutional?, Deborah W. Denno
Getting To Death: Are Executions Constitutional?, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
This Article addresses the question of when a method of executing a capital defendant amounts to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. This Article contends that execution methods cases, while reaching the right result, fail to provide a sufficiently comprehensive Eighth Amendment standard for determining the constitutionality of any execution method. The Article proposes a test that better comports with the Court's Eighth Amendment case law and more appropriately considers scientific determinations of excessive pain. To apply this test, the Article studies each state's legislative changes in execution methods during the Twentieth Century as well as accounts of …
Testing Penry And Its Progeny , Deborah W. Denno
Testing Penry And Its Progeny , Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
In Penry v. Lynaugh, the United States Supreme Court held that the Texas death penalty statute was applied unconstitutionally because the trial court gave no instructions allowing the jury to “consider and give effect to” the defendant's mitigating evidence of organic brain damage, moderate retardation, and disadvantaged background. The Court considered these mitigating factors relevant because of society's steadfast belief in the lesser culpability of defendants whose criminal acts are due to a disadvantaged background, or to emotional and mental disorders. The jury must have full consideration of such evidence in order to give its “reasoned moral response” to the …
Is Electrocution An Unconstitutional Method Of Execution? The Engineering Of Death Over The Century, Deborah W. Denno
Is Electrocution An Unconstitutional Method Of Execution? The Engineering Of Death Over The Century, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
This Article provides the Eighth Amendment analysis of electrocution that the courts thus far have not approached. The analysis has two parts. The first inquires whether, according to available scientific evidence, electrocution amounts to cruel and unusual punishment even if it is administered as planned. The second inquires whether, in light of the frequency with which electrocutions are botched, continuing the practice amounts to cruel and unusual punishment even if the properly administered electrocution would not.
Lethal Fiction: The Meaning Of "Counsel" In The Sixth Amendment , Bruce A. Green
Lethal Fiction: The Meaning Of "Counsel" In The Sixth Amendment , Bruce A. Green
Faculty Scholarship
Charles Bell, Donald Paradis, and Shirley Tyler were tried in different states for murder. Each was convicted and sentenced to death. Charles Bell was represented at trial by a recent law school graduate who had never before tried a criminal case to completion. Donald Paradis's lawyer had passed the bar exam six months earlier, had never previously represented a criminal accused, and had not elected courses in criminal law, criminal procedure, or trial advocacy while in law school. Shirley Tyler's trial lawyer was also a member of the bar for only a few months. He had defended one previous assault …
"Death Is Different" And Other Twists Of Fate, Deborah W. Denno
"Death Is Different" And Other Twists Of Fate, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
Professor Welsh White's book, The Death Penalty in the Nineties, reviews those United States Supreme Court decisions and developments that have occurred in the four years since the publication of his earlier book, The Death Penalty in the Eighties. In The Nineties, White claims that these recent developments, which have significantly limited capital defendants' habeas corpus appeals, are likely to increase both the rate and the geographical reach of executions which, in the past, have occurred mostly in the South. After discussing some of the analytical and methodological shortcomings of The Nineties, this review will focus on The Nineties' most …