Entries by Melanie Nolan

In her forth­com­ing arti­cle in the U.C. Irvine Law Review, Professor Alexandra L. Klein argues that the effect of exe­cu­tions on the peo­ple who car­ry them out has been large­ly over­looked in both legal schol­ar­ship and con­sti­tu­tion­al doc­trine. If the state choos­es to exe­cute some­one, she writes, some­one must per­form the killing, and the psy­cho­log­i­cal con­se­quences deserve a cen­tral place in con­ver­sa­tions about cru­el­ty under the Eighth Amendment. The author argues…

DPI​’s​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. Why it mat­ters: More than 600 cap­i­tal con­vic­tions or death sen­tences have been over­turned or led to exon­er­a­tions because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, and researchers say the true scope of the prob­lem is like­ly far greater. — DPI has iden­ti­fied more than 600…