Law Commons^™

Chandler V. United States: Does The Defense Attorney Have A Legal Obligation To Present Mitigation Evidence In Eleventh Circuit Death Penalty Cases?, Bill Cristman

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Probing "Life Qualification" Through Expanded Voir Dire, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, A. Brian Threlkeld

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The conventional wisdom is that most trials are won or lost in jury selection. If this is true, then in many capital cases, jury selection is literally a matter of life or death. Given these high stakes and Supreme Court case law setting out standards for voir dire in capital cases, one might expect a sophisticated and thoughtful process in which each side carefully considers which jurors would be best in the particular case. Instead, it turns out that voir dire in capital cases is woefully ineffective at the most elementary task--weeding out unqualified jurors.

Empirical evidence reveals that many …

Knockin' On Heaven's Door: Rethinking The Role Of Religion In Death Penalty Cases, Gary J. Simson, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Religion has played a prominent role at various points of capital trials. In jury selection, peremptory challenges have been exercised against prospective jurors on the basis of their religion. At the sentencing phase, defendants have offered as mitigating evidence proof of their religiosity, and the prosecution has introduced evidence of the victim's religiosity. In closing argument, quotations from the Bible and other appeals to religion have long been common. During deliberations, jurors have engaged in group prayer and tried to sway one another with quotes from scripture.

Such practices have not gone unquestioned. Rather remarkably, however, the questions have almost …

Forecasting Life And Death: Juror Race, Religion, And Attitude Toward The Death Penalty, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Determining whether race, sex, or other juror characteristics influence how capital case jurors vote is difficult. Jurors tend to vote for death in more egregious cases and for life in less egregious cases no matter what their own characteristics. And a juror's personal characteristics may get lost in the process of deliberation because the final verdict reflects the jury's will, not the individual juror's. Controlling for the facts likely to influence a juror's verdict helps to isolate the influence of a juror's personal characteristics. Examining each juror's first sentencing vote reveals her own judgment before the majority works its will. …

Averting Mistaken Executions By Adopting The Model Penal Code's Exclusion Of Death In The Presence Of Lingering Doubt, Margery Malkin Koosed

Northern Illinois University Law Review

This article urges adopting the Model Penal Code's exclusion of the death penalty when the evidence does not foreclose all doubt respecting the defendant's guilt. Adopting a modified version of the Code's section 210.6(1)(f) would both save innocent lives and lessen burdens on our justice system. While the trial jury may convict on proof beyond a reasonable doubt of capital murder, the case would not proceed to a penalty phase unless jurors found the elements proven by a stronger standard. Illinois is now reevaluating its system of capital punishment, desperately seeking means of averting the execution of innocents. That real …

Innocence Protection Act: Death Penalty Reform On The Horizon, Ronald Weich

All Faculty Scholarship

The criminal justice pendulum may be swinging back in the direction of fairness. The Innocence Protection Act of 2001, introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives earlier this year, promises meaningful reforms in the administration of capital punishment in the United States.

Unlike previous slabs at reform, the Innocence Protection Act (lPA) has a real chance to become law because it commands unusually broad bipartisan support. The Senate bill (S. 486) is sponsored by Democrat Pat Leahy of Vermont and Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon. The House bill (H.R. 912) is sponsored by Democrat Bill Delahunt of …

Capital Punishment: Corporate Criminal Liability For Gross Violations Of Human Rights, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

These remarks were presented on February 24, 2001, in a panel concluding a conference entitled "Holding Multinational Corporations Responsible Under International Law" at Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, California.

No One Can Serve Two Masters: Arguments Against Private Prosecutors, Matthew S. Nichols

Capital Defense Journal

No abstract provided.

The Innocence Protection Act Of 2001, Senator Patrick Leahy

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Informing Capital Juries About Parole: The Effect On Life Or Death Decisions, C. Lindsey Morrill

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Deadly Paradox Of Capital Jurors, Theodore Eisenberg, Stephen P. Garvey, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

We examine support for the death penalty among a unique group of respondents: one hundred and eighty-seven citizens who actually served as jurors on capital trials in South Carolina. Capital jurors support the death penalty as much as, if not more than, members of the general public. Yet capital jurors, like poll respondents, harbor doubts about the penalty's fairness. Moreover, jurors--black jurors and Southern Baptists in particular--are ready to abandon their support for the death penalty when the alternative to death is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, especially when combined with a requirement of restitution. Support for the …

Preventing The Execution Of The Innocent: Testimony Before The Senate Judiciary Committee, Barry C. Scheck

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Errors And Ethics: Dilemmas In Death, Penny J. White

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Future Dangerousness In Capital Cases: Always "At Issue", John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Under Simmons v. South Carolina, a capital defendant who, if not sentenced to death, will remain in prison with no chance of parole is constitutionally entitled to an instruction informing the jury of the fact, but only if the prosecution engages in conduct that places the defendant's future dangerousness "at issue." Based on data collected from interviews with South Carolina capital jurors, Professors Blume, Garvey and Johnson argue that future dangerousness is on the minds of most capital jurors, and is thus "at issue" in virtually all capital trials, regardless of the prosecution's conduct. Accordingly, the authors argue that …

Earl Washington's Ordeal, Eric M. Freedman

Hofstra Law Review

By way of preface to this Symposium, I offer an account of the ordeal of Earl Washington, who-having come within days of execution-was released from prison on February 12, 2001, after DNA evidence of his innocence finally proved conclusive to the Virginia authorities. I do so for two reasons.

First, I believe, both as a member of his legal team and a scholar, that history deserves an accurate account of the events. Second, more broadly, I believe that the case exemplifies many of the phenomena that contribute to the injustice of the death penalty in America today, and that its …

Preventing The Execution Of The Innocent: Testimony Before The House Judiciary Committee, Peter Neufeld

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Congressional Power To Require Dna Testing, Larry Yackle

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Race, Peremptories, And Capital Jury Deliberations, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

In Lonnie Weeks's capital murder trial in Virginia in 1993, the jury was instructed: If you find from the evidence that the Commonwealth has proved beyond a reasonable doubt, either of the two alternative aggravating factors], and as to that alternative you are unanimous, then you may fix the punishment of the defendant at death or if you believe from all the evidence that the death penalty is not justified, then you shall fix the punishment of the defendant at life imprisonment ... This instruction is plainly ambiguous, at least to a lay audience. Does it mean that if the …

The Right To Kill In Cold Blood: Does The Death Penalty Violate Human Rights, Alan Ryan

Cleveland State Law Review

The essence of the argument is this: all punishment must be inflicted in cold blood; whatever damage we do to others not in cold blood is not punishment but self-defense or revenge; what we have a right to inflict in cold blood is a question of the rules of just social cooperation and especially the justice of the sanctions required to sustain those rules; it is here argued that the fundamental principle is that we may inflict whatever punishment is necessary to deter wrongdoing and not disproportionate to the offence; I do not dismiss 'pure' retribution as a goal of …

Playing God: An Essay On Law, Philosophy, And American Capital Punishment, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

This article looks at the capital sentencer's decision: Whether a death-eligible defendant will in fact receive the death sentence. Based in part on an examination of Jewish law and philosophy, Professor Levine identifies three particular areas in which it can be said that the Supreme Court requires the capital sentencer to "play God." First, capital sentencers are asked to ascertain the degree of a defendant's culpability by looking at factors that affect free will and victim impact evidence, implicating moral luck. Capital sentencers are also required to determine a person's total moral worth by considering character evidence. Finally, the Supreme …

The Troubling Influence Of Equality In Constitutional Criminal Procedure: From Brown To Miranda, Furman And Beyond, Scott Howe

Scott W. Howe

This article identifies and critiques a theory of the criminal clauses revealed in Supreme Court decisions after Brown v. Board of Education. As the title implies, the article contends that the Court has often gone astray in constructing these clauses by focusing on equality. The article contends that the criminal clauses are better understood as discrete protections of individual liberty than as reflecting a unified theory or separate theories about equality. The article proposes a reformulation of doctrine in varied realms of constitutional criminal procedure, including police interrogation, capital sentencing and administrative searches and seizures.