This month, DPIC cel­e­brates Women’s History Month with week­ly pro­files of notable women whose work has been sig­nif­i­cant in the mod­ern death penal­ty era. The third entry in this series is Harvard Law School Professor Carol Steiker, a renowned edu­ca­tor and influ­en­tial death penal­ty schol­ar. 

Professor Steiker began her legal career as a clerk in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Steiker clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall and has attrib­uted her inter­est in and knowl­edge of the death penal­ty to him. After her clerk­ships, Professor Steiker worked at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where she defend­ed indi­gent crim­i­nal defen­dants. She has rep­re­sent­ed crim­i­nal defen­dants in all stages of the crim­i­nal process, includ­ing argu­ing death penal­ty cas­es in front of the Supreme Court.  

At Harvard, Professor Steiker is the fac­ul­ty spon­sor of the Capital Punishment Clinic, and the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law, spe­cial­iz­ing in crim­i­nal jus­tice and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In addi­tion to her work on indi­vid­ual cas­es, Professor Steiker has served as a con­sul­tant and expert wit­ness on the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment issues.  

Her 2016 book, Courting Death, which she co-authored with her broth­er and fre­quent col­lab­o­ra­tor, University of Texas Law Professor Jordan Steiker, exam­ined the U.S. Supreme Court’s decades-long efforts to reform the death penal­ty. In Harvard Magazine, Lincoln Caplan called Courting Death, the most impor­tant book about the death penal­ty in the United States — not only with­in the past gen­er­a­tion but, arguably, ever — because of its poten­tial to change how the coun­try thinks about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” 

Professor Steiker also played a key role in the 2009 deci­sion of the American Law Institute (ALI) to remove the death penal­ty from its Model Penal Code. The ALI, a non­par­ti­san group of judges, schol­ars, and lawyers, com­mis­sioned Carol and Jordan Steiker to pro­duce a report on the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty. Together, the Steikers called for the rejec­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as a penal option under cur­rent cir­cum­stances” because such a state­ment would reflect the view that the death penal­ty should not be imposed unless its admin­is­tra­tion can sat­is­fy a rea­son­able thresh­old of fair­ness and reli­a­bil­i­ty.” Since the pub­li­ca­tion of this report, six states have abol­ished the death penal­ty. In 2015, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court cit­ed the Steikers’ report in his dis­sent in Glossip v. Gross, where he opined that it was high­ly like­ly that the death penal­ty vio­lates the Eighth Amendment.”  

Citation Guide
Sources

Lincoln Caplan, Death Throes, Harvard Magazine, March 1, 2024, https://​www​.har​vard​magazine​.com/​2016​/​10​/​d​e​a​t​h​-​t​hroes; Robin Konrad, Professor Carol Steiker, Author of Courting Death, Offers an Inside Look at the Supreme Court and the History and Future of America’s Death Penalty, The Death Penalty Information Center, March 1, 2024, https://​death​penal​ty​in​fo​.org/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​s​/​p​o​d​c​a​s​t​s​/​d​i​s​c​u​s​s​i​o​n​s​-​w​i​t​h​-​d​p​i​c​/​d​i​s​c​u​s​s​i​o​n​s​-​w​i​t​h​-​d​p​i​c​-​p​r​o​f​e​s​s​o​r​-​c​a​r​o​l​-​s​t​e​i​k​e​r​-​a​u​t​h​o​r​-​o​f​-​c​o​u​r​t​i​n​g​-​d​e​a​t​h​-​o​f​f​e​r​s​-​a​n​-​i​n​s​i​d​e​-​l​o​o​k​-​a​t​-​t​h​e​-​s​u​p​r​e​m​e​-​c​o​u​r​t​-​a​n​d​-​t​h​e​-​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​-​a​n​d​-​f​u​t​u​r​e​-​o​f​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​s​-​d​e​a​t​h​-​p​e​nalty; The American Law Institute, ALI Operations, March 1, 2024, https://​www​.ali​.org/​a​b​o​u​t​-​a​l​i​/faq/; Harvard Law School, Carol S. Steiker, March 1, 2024, https://​hls​.har​vard​.edu/​f​a​c​u​l​t​y​/​c​a​r​o​l​-​s​-​s​t​e​iker/.