Law Commons^™

Contempt For The Rights Of Man: The Role Of Prosecutorial Misconduct In Virginia Capital Cases, Fay F. Spence

Fay F Spence

From reinstatement of the death penalty in Virginia in 1977, until January 2001, 132 Virginia defendants have been sentenced to death. Approximately 70% of the federal post-conviction proceedings in these cases allege some form of prosecutorial misconduct. This article discusses the appellate and post-conviction treatment of the prosecutorial misconduct allegations in each of these cases. Three cases were actually reversed because of misconduct. Courts recognized prosecutorial misconduct in another 14 cases, but held it to be “harmless error.” In 32 of the cases, the courts refused to address the allegations of misconduct, finding the issue to be “procedurally defaulted.” In …

United States V. Burns: Canada's Extraterritorial Extension Of Canadian Law And Creation Of A Canadian "Safe Haven" In Capital Extradition Cases, Andrea Cortland

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Commonwealth Of Kentucky V. William P. King, Et Al. (Sc 1744), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1744. Record of trial held in Simpson County, Kentucky of William P. King, Charles Smith, Abraham Owen and seven others for the murder of Harvey King. Defendants and victim had all participated in a previous train robbery. Also includes a photocopy of The Life of King and Owen, Written by Themselves, Revised and Prepared by Rev. L. M. Horn, Explaining the Railroad Robbery and Murder of Harvey King (Louisville, Ky., 1867); and “‘A High Handed Outrage:’ The King & Owens Railroad Robbery of 1866,” a paper written …

Doctors, Discipline, And The Death Penalty: Professional Implications Of Safe Harbor Statutes, Nadia N. Sawicki

All Faculty Scholarship

State capital punishment statutes generally contemplate the involvement of medical providers, and courts have acknowledged that the qualifications of lethal injection personnel have a constitutionally relevant dimension. However, the American Medical Association has consistently voiced its opposition to any medical involvement in executions. In recent years, some states have responded to this conflict by adopting statutory mechanisms to encourage medical participation in lethal injections. Foremost among these are safe harbor policies, which prohibit state medical boards from taking disciplinary action against licensed medical personnel who participate in executions. This Article posits that safe harbor policies, as limitations on medical board …

The Death Penalty In Delaware: An Empirical Study, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Johnson, Valerie P. Hans

Valerie P. Hans

This article reports the findings of the first phase of a three phase empirical study of the death penalty in Delaware. In phase 1, we examined only cases in which the defendant was sentenced to death. While our findings are preliminary, there appear to be, as numerous other studies have found in other jurisdictions, race of victim effects. Seventy percent of the death sentences were imposed in white victim cases, even though the majority of the murder victims are black. Additionally, Delaware has one of the highest death sentencing rates in the country. This high rate appears to be the …

Petition For Rehearing, Kennedy V. Louisiana, No. 07-343 (U.S. July 21, 2008), Viet D. Dinh, Neal K. Katyal

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

When Life Depends On It: Supplementary Guidelines For The Mitigation Function Of Defense Teams In Death Penalty Cases, Sean O'Brien

Faculty Works

The Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Capital Defense Teams are the culmination of three years of work coordinated by the Public Interest Litigation Clinic (PILC) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law in cooperation with seasoned capital litigators and mitigation specialists across the United States. This article describes the Supplementary Guidelines and the process by which they were researched and developed. Part I describes the Supplementary Guidelines and the process by which they were researched and developed. Part II describes the reasons for undertaking this project. Part III describes the process of investigating, researching and drafting …

Should Commission Of A Contemporaneous Arson, Burglary, Kidnapping, Rape Or Robbery Be Sufficient To Make A Murderer Eligible For A Death Sentence?--An Empirical And Normative Analysis, David Mccord

David McCord

This Article addresses one of the most important issues in capital punishment law—should commission of a contemporaneous felony suffice for death-eligibility? While almost every death penalty jurisdiction includes commission of a contemporaneous arson, burglary, kidnapping, rape, or robbery as a factor that will make a defendant death-eligible, in recent years blue-ribbon panels in Illinois and Massachusetts have advocated elimination of contemporaneous felonies as death penalty aggravators. These panels made their recommendations without significant empirical analysis. This Article undertakes that analysis through an extensive empirical study (over four years in the making) of over 1100 death-eligible murder cases from a two-year …

Competency For Execution: The Implications Of A Communicative Model Of Retribution, Pamela A. Wilkins

Pamela A Wilkins

In Panetti v. Quarterman, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S. Ct. 2842 (2007), the United States Supreme Court opined that executions of mentally incompetent inmates lack retributive value and, for that reason, violate the Eighth Amendment. To date, however, the Court has failed to articulate a theory of retribution that makes sense of the ban on executing the incompetent. Importantly, the purely desert-based view of retribution that is the focus of most of the Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence cannot account for the ban. This article attempts to articulate a theory of retribution that accounts for the Eighth Amendment ban and then …

Foreword: The Perpetual Controversy, Christopher M. Johnson

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Two qualities of American capital punishment perhaps explain its ability to command the attention of the Court, year by year, decade after decade. First, an exceptionally talented and dedicated specialist capital defense bar continually mounts new challenges to the institution of the death penalty. This year, for example, we await a decision from the Supreme Court on the claim that the lethal injection method of execution violates the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Constitution. Never before has the Supreme Court confronted this claim; indeed, not for more than a hundred years has the Supreme Court addressed a …

The Emerging Death Penalty Jurisprudence Of The Roberts Court, Kenneth C. Haas

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “In 1976, four years after finding the nation’s death penalty laws to be constitutionally flawed, the U.S. Supreme Court established the parameters of modern American death penalty jurisprudence. Since then the Court has gone through several phases. The Court proceeded cautiously from 1977 to 1982, limiting the death penalty to those who committed murder in a manner deemed especially heinous and despicable by judges and juries, requiring even-handedness and consistency in capital sentencing, and insisting that sentencing authorities examine the individual characteristics of each offender and the particular circumstances of his crime. From 1983 to 2001, however, the Court …

The Abolitionist’S Dilemma: Establishing The Standards For The Evolving Standards Of Decency, Dwight Aarons

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “For those who believe that the death penalty should be declared unconstitutional and that the U.S. Supreme Court is the institution that should make that declaration, these are interesting times. On one hand, the Rehnquist Court, which had previously not been a reliable friend of criminal defendants, in 2002, ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded defendants, and in 2005 it came to the same conclusion as to defendants who committed a capital crime before his or her eighteenth birthday. On the other hand, close scrutiny of these opinions evidences that the Court all but casts aside …

Death Is Unconstitutional: How Capital Punishment Became Illegal In America—A Future History, Jur. Eric Engle Ph.D.

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “A constitution is an organic fact of every state: it is a part of the being of the state. People, like the state, also have a constitution—a character. Just as people change over time, so do states. But just as there are natural limits on what people can or cannot become, so there are natural limits on what the state can and cannot fairly do. No man, nor any group of men, ex ante may justly take the life of another person, though perhaps their killing may be excused (or forgiven) ex post.”

"The death of Death would surely …

When It's So Hard To Relate: Can Legal Systems Mitigate The Trauma Of Victim-Offender Relationships?, Jody L. Madeira

Jody L Madeira

This article argues that, in the aftermath of violent crime, a relationship that is both negative and involuntary can form between crime victims and offenders. This relationship fetters the victim to the crime and the criminal, rendering it difficult to recover from the transgression. To illustrate how such a relationship may form and what consequences it may have for victims, this article uses the Oklahoma City bombing as a case study, documenting through the use of original interviews an involuntary relationship in which victims’ family members and survivors perceived they were tethered to Timothy McVeigh. This perceived relationship with McVeigh …

Death And Harmless Error: A Rhetorical Response To Judging Innocence, Colin Starger

All Faculty Scholarship

Professor Garrett’s impressive empirical analysis of the first 200 post conviction DNA exonerations in the United States (“Garrett Study”) has the potential to affect contemporary debates surrounding our nation’s criminal justice system. This Response explores this potential by harnessing the Study’s data in support of arguments for and against a contested doctrinal proposition — that guilt-based harmless error rules should never apply in death penalty appeals. My analysis starts with the premise that the Study’s real world impact will necessarily depend on how jurists, politicians, and scholars extrapolate the explanatory power of the data beyond the 200 cases themselves. While …

The Whim Of Twelve Is Cloaked In Racial Prejudice: Why Inherent Racial Discrimination In The Capital Punishment System Requires That Maryland's Legislature Enact A Fairness In Death Sentencing Act, Matthew E. Feinberg

Matthew E Feinberg

At sentencing in a capital case, “[p]eople live or die, dependent on the whim of one man or of [twelve,]” and “where responsibility is divided by twelve, it is easy to say: ‘Away with him.’" Although judges, practitioners, and academics hope for a fair and reliable penalty, since the 1970s, the prospect of racial discrimination in capital punishment has had a very real impact on the criminal justice system. Throughout the country, Caucasian and African American criminals are being treated differently in death sentencing simply because of the color of their skin. “[I]n the face of science, in the face …

The Death Of Death-Qualification, G. Ben Cohen, Robert J. Smith

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Beyond A Conceivable Doubt: The Quest For A Fair And Constitutional Standard Of Proof In Death Penalty Cases, Robert M. Hardaway

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The death penalty remains the most contentious issue in criminal law jurisprudence, and continues to be challenged on both constitutional and moral grounds. What is most remarkable about American death penalty jurisprudence is that it has traditionally focused on purely technical and procedural aspects of the imposition of the death penalty, despite the fact that the most vulnerable plank in the arsenal of death penalty defenders is evidence that innocent people have been, and will continue to be, executed. Perhaps no legal principle is more difficult to explain to the layman or first-year law student than that of all the …

Death Is Unconstitutional: How Capital Punishment, Eric A. Engle

Eric A. Engle

Argues that capital punishment is unconstitutional as a violation of natural law because the punishment is disproportional, uncertain, and irrevocable.

Supplementary Guidelines For The Mitigation Function Of Defense Teams In Death Penalty Cases

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Life And Death Decisions: Prosecutorial Discretion And Capital Punishment In Missouri, Katherine Y. Barnes, David L. Sloss, Stephen C. Thaman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article presents the results of an empirical study of intentional homicide cases in Missouri. The authors created a database of 1046 cases; it includes substantially all of the homicide cases prosecuted in Missouri over a five year period that were initially charged as murder or voluntary manslaughter and that yielded criminal convictions. The authors selected 247 cases from the larger database for more detailed analysis. We analyzed geographic and racial disparities in the rates at which: prosecutors charge first-degree murder versus lesser charges; prosecutors seek the death penalty, not lesser punishments; defendants are convicted of first-degree murder versus lesser …

Habeas Corpus And State Sentencing Reform: A Story Of Unintended Consequences, Nancy J. King, Suzanna Sherry

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article tells the story of how fundamental shifts in state sentencing policy collided with fundamental shifts in federal habeas policy to produce a tangled and costly doctrinal wreck. The conventional assumption is that state prisoners seeking habeas relief allege constitutional errors in their state court convictions and sentences. But almost 20 percent of federal habeas petitions filed by noncapital state prisoners do not challenge state court judgments. They instead attack administrative actions by state prison officials or parole boards, actions taken long after the petitioner's conviction and sentencing. Challenges to these administrative decisions create serious problems for federal habeas …

Engaging Capital Emotions, Douglas A. Berman, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, is about to decide whether the Eighth Amendment forbids capital punishment for child rape. Commentators are aghast, viewing this as a vengeful recrudescence of emotion clouding sober, rational criminal justice policy. To their minds, emotion is distracting. To ours, however, emotion is central to understand the death penalty. Descriptively, emotions help to explain many features of our death-penalty jurisprudence. Normatively, emotions are central to why we punish, and denying or squelching them risks prompting vigilantism and other unhealthy outlets for this normal human reaction. The emotional case for the death penalty for child …

Social Science And The Evolving Standards Of Death Penalty Law, Samuel R. Gross, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Book Chapters

Unlike many of the topics covered in this book, death penalty litigation involves a wide variety of empirical issues. The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides that "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted." But what is a "cruel and unusual punishment?" It could be a punishment that is morally unacceptable to the American people, like cutting off noses or hands. Following the other clauses of the amendment, it could be a punishment that is excessive, in that a lesser penalty would achieve the same ends. For example, if a …

Abolition In The U.S.A. By 2050: On Political Capital And Ordinary Acts Of Resistance, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

The United States, like the larger international community, likely will tend toward greater abolition of the death penalty during the first half of the twenty-first century. A handful of individual states – states that have historically carried out few or no executions – probably will abolish capital punishment over the next twenty years, which will create political momentum and ultimately a federal constitutional ban on capital punishment in the United States. It is entirely reasonable to expect that, by the mid-twenty-first century, capital punishment will have the same status internationally as torture: an outlier practice, prohibited by international agreements and …

Competent Capital Representation: The Necessity Of Knowing And Heeding What Jurors Tell Us About Mitigation, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Scott E. Sundby

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court And The Politics Of Death, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

This article explores the evolving role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the politics of death. By constitutionalizing the death penalty in the 1970s, the Supreme Court unintentionally set into motion political forces that have seriously undermined the Court's vision of a death penalty that is fairly administered and imposed only on the worst offenders. With the death penalty established as a highly salient political issue, politicians - legislators, prosecutors, and governors - have strong institutional incentives to make death sentences easier to achieve and carry out. The result of this vicious cycle is not only more executions, but less …

Frequency And Predictors Of False Conviction: Why We Know So Little, And New Data On Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien

Articles

In the first part of this article, we address the problems inherent in studying wrongful convictions: our pervasive ignorance and the extreme difficulty of obtaining the data that we need to answer even basic questions. The main reason that we know so little about false convictions is that, by definition, they are hidden from view. As a result, it is nearly impossible to gather reliable data on the characteristics or even the frequency of false convictions. In addition, we have very limited data on criminal investigations and prosecutions in general, so even if we could somehow obtain data on cases …