Law Reviews

Items: 11 — 20


Jun 26, 2020

Law Reviews — Valuing Black Lives: A Case for Ending the Death Penalty

States still oper­at­ing a cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem are inca­pable of admin­is­ter­ing the death penal­ty free from racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and arbi­trari­ness.” So argues Alexis Hoag (pic­tured), Practitioner in Residence at the Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil and Political Rights at Columbia University, in an arti­cle in the Spring 2020 issue of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.

Read More

May 08, 2020

Study Reflects Increasing Futility of Judicial Review in Texas Death Penalty Cases

Judicial enforce­ment of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights in Texas death penal­ty cas­es has become increas­ing­ly rare and is vir­tu­al­ly non-exis­tent in the state’s fed­er­al courts, a new University of Houston Law Center study has found. The study, Reversal Rates in Capital Cases in Texas, 2000 – 2020, pub­lished online on April 27, 2020 in the UCLA Law Review, reports that rever­sal rates in cas­es in which Texas cap­i­tal defen­dants were sen­tenced to death in the first two decades of the 21st cen­tu­ry have plum­met­ed in com­par­i­son to grants of relief in ear­li­er cases.

Read More

Dec 30, 2019

Law Review: New Article Highlights Decline of Judicial Death Sentences

At least 99 men and one woman are on death row in eight U.S. states, con­demned to death by judges with­out the pri­or autho­riza­tion of a jury, accord­ing to a 2019 study by researchers Michael Radelet and Ben Cohen (pic­tured) pub­lished in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science. Another 18 pris­on­ers sen­tenced to death since the resump­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. in the 1970s, the study shows, have been exe­cut­ed after judges dis­re­gard­ed or over­rode jury votes in favor of life.

Read More

Nov 12, 2019

New Podcast: Unrequited Innocence” with Rob Warden and John Seasly

At least 166 wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death-row pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed since the death penal­ty was rein­sti­tut­ed in the United States in 1973. That num­ber, how­ev­er, may only scratch the sur­face in assess­ing the degree to which inno­cent men and women are being sent to U.S. death rows.

Read More

Sep 19, 2018

Law Review: Article Tracks 400 Years of America’s Inglorious Experience” With the Death Penalty

A land­mark arti­cle in the Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy pro­vides a com­pi­la­tion of mile­stones in the American expe­ri­ence with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” track­ing more than 400 years of the inglo­ri­ous expe­ri­ence with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment” in what is now the United States. Authors Rob Warden (pic­tured, left), Executive Director Emeritus at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic Center on Wrongful Convictions, and Daniel Lennard (pic­tured, right), a lawyer at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, tracked more than four cen­turies of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on what is…

Read More

Apr 02, 2018

Study Analyzes Causes of Astonishing Plunge” in Death Sentences in the United States

Multiple fac­tors — from declin­ing mur­der rates to the aban­don­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment by many rur­al coun­ties and sub­stan­tial­ly reduced usage in out­lier coun­ties that had aggres­sive­ly imposed it in the past — have col­lec­tive­ly led to an aston­ish­ing plunge” in death sen­tences over the last twen­ty years, accord­ing to a new study, Lethal Rejection, pub­lished in the 2017/​2018 Albany Law Review. Using data on death-eli­gi­ble cas­es from 1994, 2004, and 2014, Drake University law pro­fes­sor David McCord and Niagara University crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­fes­sor Talia Roitberg Harmon exam­ined a range of fac­tors to determine…

Read More

Sep 18, 2017

STUDY: Worst Crimes Carry Highest Risk of Bad Evidence, Wrongful Convictions

Two pro­fes­sors of soci­ol­o­gy and crim­i­nol­o­gy who reviewed more than 1500 cas­es in which con­vict­ed pris­on­ers were lat­er exon­er­at­ed have found a direct rela­tion­ship between the seri­ous­ness of the crime and mis­car­riages of jus­tice: the worst of the worst crimes,’” they say, pro­duce the worst of the worst evi­dence.’ ” In their research — report­ed in the law review arti­cle, The Worst of the Worst: Heinous Crimes and Erroneous Evidence—University of Denver pro­fes­sors Scott Phillips (pic­tured) and Jamie Richardson found that as the seri­ous­ness of a crime increas­es, so too does the chance…

Read More

Mar 09, 2017

LAW REVIEWS: Predictions of Future Dangerousness Contribute to Arbitrary Sentencing Decisions

In a new arti­cle for the Lewis & Clark Law Review, author Carla Edmondson argues that the future dan­ger­ous­ness inquiry that is implic­it in cap­i­tal setenc­ing deter­mi­na­tions is a fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed ques­tion that leads to arbi­trary and capri­cious death sen­tences” and because of the per­sis­tent influ­ence of future dan­ger­ous­ness … ren­ders the death penal­ty incom­pat­i­ble with the pro­hi­bi­tions of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments on cru­el and unusu­al punishment.”

Read More