Law Reviews

A recent arti­cle in the Western New England Law Review exam­ines ways in which the rules of evi­dence and pro­ce­dures at cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing tri­als are less rig­or­ous than those applied at the guilt-phase of the tri­al. In cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing hear­ings, evi­dence is per­mit­ted that would not be admis­si­ble to prove guilt. The defen­dant does not receive tra­di­tion­al tri­al pro­tec­tions at the sen­tenc­ing tri­al. For exam­ple, hearsay may be received by the jury dur­ing sen­tenc­ing, but is gen­er­al­ly inadmissible…

A recent arti­cle in the Wayne Law Review by Prof. Phillys L. Crocker of the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law exam­ines the Supreme Court’s strug­gle with the issue of death row inmates waiv­ing their appeals. Crocker uses Rees v. Peyton, a cap­i­tal case that remained on the Court’s dock­et from 1965 – 1995, to explore the issue. In that case, Virginia death row inmate Melvin Rees sought to with­draw his peti­tion for a writ of cer­tio­rari so that he could be exe­cut­ed. In 1967, the Supreme Court stayed…

Symposium: Pamela Blume Leonard, Michael Mears, John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey, Samuel R. Gross, Richard Burr, et al.: ​“Victims and the Death Penalty: Inside and Outside the Courtroom,” 88 Cornell Law Review 257 (2003). This is a series of arti­cles in the Cornell Law Review stem­ming from a sym­po­sium focus­ing on the role that vic­tims play in cap­i­tal cas­es. The jour­nal pro­vides a close legal exam­i­na­tion of vic­tim impact state­ments and relat­ed research, expert analy­sis of…