The Tennessee Law Review recently published a compilation of articles and essays from its colloquium, “The Past, Present, and Future of the Death Penalty,” held in February 2009. Contributors focused on issues that have influenced capital punishment throughout the course of history. An article by Hugo Adam Bedau, a prominent death penalty scholar, addresses the issues of innocence and racial bias in the application of the death penalty. Lyn Entzeroth focuses on whether mentally ill defendants should be excluded from the death penalty, and asks whether states should be allowed to forcibly medicate mentally ill defendants in order to make them competent for execution. The colloquium included a keynote address by Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights on representation, and papers by Dwight Aarons, David Baldus, Julie Brain, Neil Weiner, George Woodworth, John Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Christopher Seeds, Bradley MacLean, Judge Gilbert Merritt, Penny White, and Pamela Wilkins.

(Colloquium, “The Past, Present, and Future of the Death Penalty,” 76 Tennessee Law Review 505 (2009)). See also Law Reviews.