Law Commons^™

Johnson V. State, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 73 (Oct. 5, 2017) (En Banc), Ebeth Rocio Palafox

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

When the Court reverses a death sentence on direct appeal and remands for a new penalty hearing, there is no longer a final judgment that triggers the one-year period set forth in NRS 34.726(1) for filing a post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

An Empirical Assessment Of Georgia's Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held that execution of people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In doing so, the Court explicitly left to the states the question of which procedures would be used to identify such defendants as exempt from the death penalty. More than a decade before Atkins, Georgia was the first state to bar execution of people with intellectual disability. Yet, of the states that continue to impose the death penalty as a punishment for capital murder, Georgia is the only state that requires capital defendants to prove …

Moore V. Texas: Balancing Medical Advancements With Judicial Stability, Emily Taft

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

In Moore v. Texas, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Eighth Amendment requires States to adhere to a particular organization’s most recent clinical definition of intellectual disability in determining whether a person is exempt from the death penalty under Atkins v. Virginia and Hall v. Florida. Generally, the Supreme Court has carved away at the death penalty with each new case it takes. This commentary argues that the Supreme Court should not continue that trend in this case and should find for Texas because the state’s intellectual disability determination is consistent with the Eighth Amendment under Atkins …

Book Review: The History Of The Death Penalty In Colorado, John Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Should Death Be So Different?: Sentencing Purposes And Capital Jury Decisions In An Era Of Smart On Crime Sentencing Reform, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

We are in an era of “Smart on Crime” sentencing reform. Several states and the federal government have made major changes to their sentencing policies—from reducing the incarceration of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders to the use of evidence-based sentencing to focus the most severe punishments on those who are at the greatest risk of recidivism. Often, today’s reform efforts are spoken about in terms of being fiscally responsible while still controlling crime. Though such reform efforts do not explicitly acknowledge purposes of punishment—such as retribution, incapacitation, rehabilitation, or deterrence—an undercurrent running through all of these reforms is an effort …

Cruel Techniques, Unusual Secrets, William W. Berry, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In the recent case of Glossip v. Gross, the Supreme Court denied a death row petitioner’s challenge to Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol. An important part of Justice Alito’s majority opinion highlighted the existence of a relationship between the constitutionality of a punishment and the requirement of a constitutional technique available to administer the punishment.

Far from foreclosing future challenges, this principle ironically highlights the failure of the Court to describe the relationship under the Eighth Amendment between three distinct categories of punishment: (1) the type of punishment imposed by the court — i.e., death penalty, life without parole, life with …