Christopher Slobogin, Professor of Law and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, has writ­ten an eval­u­a­tion of Florida​’s death penal­ty to be pub­lished in a forth­com­ing edi­tion of the Elon University Law Review. The eval­u­a­tion is based on a study by an assess­ment team spon­sored by the American Bar Association. Florida is one of the lead­ing states in sen­tenc­ing peo­ple to death, but it also has the most death row exon­er­a­tions of any state in the coun­try. Florida was cho­sen by the ABA to be one of eight death penal­ty states reviewed under its Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. The pur­pose of this project was to allow states to iden­ti­ty and elim­i­nate flaws in their death penal­ty sys­tem. The Florida Assessment Team was led by Prof. Slobogin and was instruct­ed to inves­ti­gate the fol­low­ing aspects of death penal­ty admin­is­tra­tion: ​“police inves­ti­ga­tion pro­ce­dures; the use of DNA evi­dence; crime lab­o­ra­to­ries and med­ical exam­in­ers; pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al dis­cre­tion; defense ser­vices; jury instruc­tions; the judi­cial role; the direct appeal process; state post-con­vic­tion and fed­er­al habeas pro­ceed­ings; clemen­cy pro­ceed­ings; the treat­ment of racial and eth­nic minori­ties; and the treat­ment of peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness and mental retardation.”

According to the law review arti­cle, ​“The descrip­tion of Florida law and prac­tice … rais­es grave doubts about whether all of the peo­ple who are cur­rent­ly on death row in Florida (not to men­tion the twen­ty-two who have been released from it) deserve it. Problems asso­ci­at­ed with police inves­tiga­tive tech­niques, sci­en­tif­ic test­ing pro­ce­dures, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al deci­sions dur­ing charg­ing and tri­al, defense attor­ney qual­i­fi­ca­tions and com­pen­sa­tion, judi­cial and jury deci­sion-mak­ing, jury instruc­tions, the clemen­cy process, and racial and dis­abil­i­ty bias can under­mine the reli­a­bil­i­ty of con­vic­tions in cap­i­tal cas­es, the death sen­tences hand­ed down in such cas­es, or both.”

(C. Slobogin, ​“The Death Penalty in Florida,” Elon University Law Review (forth­com­ing 2009)). Click here for more Law Reviews arti­cles. See also Studies.

Citation Guide