Law Reviews

A recent law review article by Professors Carol and Jordan Steiker examines two decades of attempts to regulate capital punishment and concludes that this process may have paved the way to a finding that the death penalty is unconstitutional: “[T]he modern American death penalty — with its unprecedented costs, alternatives, and legal regulatory framework — seems newly vulnerable to judicial invalidation. Reform of the death penalty and its abolition might well be on the same path.” The authors…

A recent article in the Michigan State Law Review examined the problem of racial bias in capital cases, particularly with respect to jurors’ decision making. Authors Mona Lynch and Craig Haney (pictured), both professors at the University of California, summarize past statistical studies on race and the death penalty and present new experimental research on juror decision-making in a simulated capital trial. Research participants were shown one of four simulated trial videotapes. The videos…

In one of the most comprehensive investigations ever undertaken about the execution of a possibly innocent defendant, Professor James Liebman and other researchers at Columbia University Law School have published a groundbreaking report on the case of Carlos DeLuna (pictured), who was executed in Texas in 1989. This “Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution” is being published today (May 15) in Columbia’s Human Rights Law Review. Prof. Liebman concluded DeLuna was innocent and was wrongly convicted “on…

Recently published historical research led by Professor Austin Sarat (pictured) of Amherst College examines the way gruesome executions were reported in the media in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Prof. Sarat’s study found that newspapers generally presented two competing narratives in their coverage: “a sensationalist narrative, which played up the gruesomeness of botched execution[s], and an opposing, recuperative narrative, which sought to differentiate [the] law’s violence from…

A recent study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology about the U.S. Military death penalty system found that racial disparities among those sentenced to death are worse in the military than in other criminal courts. The study, conducted by Catherine Grosso of Michigan State’s College of Law, the late David Baldus of the University of Iowa College of Law, and others, reviewed all potentially death-eligible military prosecutions from 1984 to 2005 and identified 105…

A new article to be published in the American Criminal Law Review explores the constitutionality of the death penalty for those convicted of felony murder, i.e., those who participated in a serious crime in which a death occurred, but were not directly responsible for the death. The article is by Joseph Trigilio and Tracy Casadio, both Deputy Federal Public Defenders in California and is titled “Executing Those Who Do Not Kill.” The authors argue that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Tison…

On February 11, 2011, a symposium will be held at the Vermont Law School in South Royalton to explore current issues in capital punishment. Entitled New Perspectives on Capital Punishment, the symposium will address the death penalty from the point of view of scholars, litigators, and educators. The goal of the symposium is to contribute to the vital discourse concerning capital punishment and its human rights implications. It will feature Hugo Adam Bedau, a prominent death penalty scholar.