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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

A new study by William Bowers and oth­ers pub­lished in the Criminal Law Bulletin revealed that most jurors in death penal­ty cas­es lack suf­fi­cient under­stand­ing of their duties, ren­der­ing the process uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by Supreme Court stan­dards. The study showed that cap­i­tal jurors often mis­tak­en­ly believe that a death sen­tence is required by law, and fail to take pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty for the defen­dan­t’s pun­ish­ment. The study suggested…

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…

A recent arti­cle in the Akron Law Review asks whether the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA) is in com­pli­ance with the Sixth Amendment​’s right to con­front wit­ness­es because it allows hearsay evi­dence in deter­min­ing whether a defen­dant is eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. During a typ­i­cal crim­i­nal tri­al, the accused has the right to chal­lenge and cross exam­ine the tes­ti­mo­ny of state wit­ness­es who must appear in per­son. But in a death…

A recent arti­cle by Prof. Jeffrey Kirchmeier of the City University of New York School of Law enti­tled,​“The Undiscovered Country: Execution Competency & Comprehending Death” explores whether men­tal­ly dis­abled inmates who do not under­stand that exe­cu­tion means the end of their phys­i­cal life should be spared. Kirchmeier exam­ines Supreme Court prece­dent under the Eighth Amendment that requires that a con­demned defen­dant be com­pe­tent in order to be…