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Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Merciful Capital Juror, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey
The Merciful Capital Juror, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
We examine the role of mercy in capital sentencing along three dimensions. We first explain why mercy is a philosophically problematic virtue, and second, why it presently holds an ambiguous status within constitutional doctrine. Finally, we draw on interviews with jurors who served on capital cases in order better to understand how the behavior of merciful jurors compares to the behavior of their less merciful counterparts. Among other things, we find that merciful jurors tend to be better educated and to attend religious services regularly. We also find that merciful jurors are, as one might reasonably expect, more apt to …
Implicit Racial Attitudes Of Death Penalty Lawyers, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Implicit Racial Attitudes Of Death Penalty Lawyers, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Defense attorneys commonly suspect that the defendant's race plays a role in prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty, especially when the victim of the crime was white. When the defendant is convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, it is equally common for such attorneys to question the racial attitudes of the jury. These suspicions are not merely partisan conjectures; ample historical, statistical, and anecdotal evidence supports the inference that race matters in capital cases. Even the General Accounting Office of the United States concludes as much. Despite McCleskey v. Kemp, in which the United States Supreme Court …
Capital Jurors As The Litmus Test Of Community Conscience For The Juvenile Death Penalty, Michael E. Antonio, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, Valerie P. Hans, William J. Bowers
Capital Jurors As The Litmus Test Of Community Conscience For The Juvenile Death Penalty, Michael E. Antonio, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, Valerie P. Hans, William J. Bowers
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This fall, the United States Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty in Simmons v. Roper. The Eighth Amendment issue before the Court in Simmons will be whether the juvenile death penalty accords with the conscience of the community. This article presents evidence that bears directly on the conscience of the community in juvenile capital cases as revealed through extensive in-depth interviews with jurors who made the critical life-or-death decision in such cases. The data come from the Capital Jury Project, a national study of the exercise of sentencing discretion in capital cases conducted with …
The Futile Quest For Racial Neutrality In Capital Selection And The Eighth Amendment Argument For Abolition Based On Unconscious Racial Discrimination, Scott W. Howe
Scott W. Howe
This article begins by discussing the characteristics of current capital-sentencing systems that make racial discrimination in capital selection uncontrollable. It also summarizes the social-science evidence that white-victim bias widely plagues capital selection. The article then develops the two central arguments suggested by its title. First, it provides a detailed explanation of why proposals for federal regulatory reform cannot succeed in achieving racial neutrality in capital selection. Second, it provides a theory to explain why unconscious racial discrimination in capital selection violates the Eighth Amendment and, given the futility of federal regulatory remedies, justifies abolition.