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Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Law
Post-Mccleskey Racial Discrimination Claims In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Post-Mccleskey Racial Discrimination Claims In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
In federal habeas corpus proceedings, Earl Matthews, an African American, South Carolina death row inmate, alleged that his death sentence was the result of invidious racial discrimination that violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To support his contention, Matthews presented statistical evidence showing that in Charleston County, where a jury convicted him and sentenced him to death, the prosecutor was far more likely to seek a death sentence for a Black defendant accused of killing a white person than for any other racial combination of victims and defendants, and also that such a Black defendant was more …
The Failed Case For Eighth Amendment Regulation Of The Capital-Sentencing Trial, Scott W. Howe
The Failed Case For Eighth Amendment Regulation Of The Capital-Sentencing Trial, Scott W. Howe
Scott W. Howe
This article explores Eighth Amendment theories that might justify the effort by the Supreme Court to regulate capital-sentencing trials but explains why they are problematic. The Court typically has asserted that the aim of its capital-sentencing doctrine is to achieve nonarbitrariness or consistency in the use of the death penalty. However, the article shows why the Court's regulatorty efforts have not served that goal, why that goal is unachievable, and, ultimately, why that goal does not comport with the mandate of the Eighth Amendment. The article contends that the better view is that the Eighth Amendment limits the use of …
Harris V. Commonwealth: The Use Of "Statutory" Aggravating Circumstances In Kentucky's Sentencing Procedure, Melissa Bartlett
Harris V. Commonwealth: The Use Of "Statutory" Aggravating Circumstances In Kentucky's Sentencing Procedure, Melissa Bartlett
Kentucky Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Catholic Judges In Capital Cases, Amy Coney Barrett, John H. Garvey
Catholic Judges In Capital Cases, Amy Coney Barrett, John H. Garvey
Journal Articles
The Catholic Church's opposition to the death penalty places Catholic judges in a moral and legal bind. While these judges are obliged by oath, professional commitment, and the demands of citizenship to enforce the death penalty, they are also obliged to adhere to their church's teaching on moral matters. Although the legal system has a solution for this dilemma by allowing the recusal of judges whose convictions keep them from doing their job, Catholic judges will want to sit whenever possible without acting immorally. However, litigants and the general public are entitled to impartial justice, which may be something a …
Race, Angst And Capital Punishment: The Burger Court's Existential Struggle, Katherine R. Kruse
Race, Angst And Capital Punishment: The Burger Court's Existential Struggle, Katherine R. Kruse
Scholarly Works
This article chronicles the Burger Court's inability to fashion a suitable remedy for racism in the discretionary system of capital sentencing. The article discusses the Court's initial response, “remedial paralysis,” which is evident, not only in McGautha v. California, where the Court refused to find that the Due Process Clause was violated by standardless death sentencing, but also in Furman v. Georgia, where the Court decided to abolish the death penalty. The article further explores the Court's reinstatement of the death penalty, and two of the Court's forays into “bad faith” denial that sustained the death penalty, particularly the Court's …
Race And The Victim: An Examination Of Capital Sentencing And Guilt Attribution Studies, Cynthia Lee
Race And The Victim: An Examination Of Capital Sentencing And Guilt Attribution Studies, Cynthia Lee
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This article examines the effect of the race of the victim on legal decision making in capital and non-capital criminal cases. A large body of research on race and capital sentencing indicates that the crime victim's race affects the prosecutor's decision to seek, and the jury's decision to recommend, the death penalty. The most well known of these is undoubtedly the Baldus study, which provided the data underlying the defendant's challenge to the Georgia death penalty regime in McCleskey v. Kemp. Less well known are empirical analyses conducted since the Supreme Court rejected McCleskey's challenge. The article reviews several of …