INDEX

This web site and its accompanying materials are designed to assist both teachers and students in an exploration of capital punishment, presenting arguments for and against its use, as well as issues of ethics and justice that surround it.

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Networks,

Law professor Stuart Banner tells the story of how, over four centuries, dramatic changes have taken place in the ways capital punishment has been administered and experienced. Banner moves beyond the debates, to give us an unprecedented understanding of capital punishment’s many meanings. As nearly four thousand inmates are now on death row, and almost one hundred are currently being executed each year, the furious debate is unlikely to diminish. The Death Penalty is invaluable in understanding the American way of the ultimate punishment.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

Why does the United States continue to employ the death penalty when fifty other developed democracies have abolished it? Why does capital punishment become more problematic each year? How can the death penalty conflict be resolved?In The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment, Frank Zimring reveals that the seemingly insoluble turmoil surrounding the death penalty reflects a deep and long-standing division in American values, a division that he predicts will soon bring about the end of capital punishment in our country. On the one hand, execution would seem to violate our nation’s highest legal principles of fairness and due process. It sets us increasingly apart from our allies and indeed is regarded by European nations as a barbaric and particularly egregious form of American exceptionalism. On the other hand, the death penalty represents a deeply held American belief in violent social justice that sees the hangman as an agent of local control and safeguard of community values.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

This short article will explore some additional issues regarding the relationship between international law and the death penalty. First, it will discuss some additional aspects of the representation of foreign nationals in capital cases. Second, it will discuss additional instances in which defense counsel can make international law arguments, regardless of the client’s nationality. Third, because international law issues are new to most lawyers in the United States, even those who are seasoned in capital litigation, it will suggest some alternative ways in which international law arguments can be made. The conclusion will put theUnited States experience with the death penalty into the broader context of world practice on the death penalty.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation,

The revised ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases require that an agency “independent of the judiciary” be responsible for “ensuring that each capital defendant in the jurisdiction receives high quality legal representation.” This independent agency “and not the judiciary or elected officials should select lawyers for specific cases.” These mandates reflect two realities that have become overwhelmingly clear: (1) judges—whether initially elected, subject to retention elections, or appointed—are subject to political pressures in connection with capital punishment cases; and (2) lawyers whom judges have appointed in capital punishment cases have frequently been of far lower quality than could have been selected.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation,

The ABA’s revised Guidelines have squarely addressed the importance of seeking and negotiating dispositions in capital cases as a core component of effective representation in matters of life and death. Pleas have been available in the overwhelming majority of capital cases in the post-Furman era, including the cases of hundreds of prisoners who have been executed. There are no precise empirical data on this question. Plea negotiations are typically confidential, with both parties maintaining a posture of plausible denial if negotiations fail. The prosecutor may find it harder to argue to jurors that justice in a particular case requires a sentence of death if they know that he had offered the defendant a life sentence only weeks before. Defense counsel may not want to advertise her willingness to plead to first-degree murder if the case proceeds to trial and she is arguing to the jurors that the proof supports only second-degree. In addition, there are cases where a plea was acceptable to both sides, but negotiation never began because each side waited for the other to initiate discussions.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation,

This article explores the roots of white support for capital punishment in the United States. Our analysis addresses individual-level and contextual factors, paying particular attention to how racial attitudes and racial composition influence white support for capital punishment. Our findings suggest that white support hinges on a range of attitudes wider than prior research has indicated, including social and governmental trust and individualist and authoritarian values. Extending individual-level analyses, we also find that white responses to capital punishment are sensitive to local context. Perhaps most important, our results clarify the impact of race in two ways. First, racial prejudice emerges here as a comparatively strong predictor of white support for the death penalty. Second, black residential proximity functions to polarize white opinion along lines of racial attitude. As the black percentage of county residents rises, so too does the impact of racial prejudice on white support for capital punishment.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public opinion,

Fairness for those defendants facing the ultimate punishment of death requires that they be afforded zealous advocacy by competent counsel, and that counsel be provided with the resources necessary to effectively represent their clients. Stating that “[o]ur capital system is haunted by the demon of error, error in determining guilt, and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die,” Governor Ryan cited many deficiencies in the justice system in Illinois, including poor lawyering and inadequate resources for defense counsel, in arriving at his decision to commute all death sentences. Over the years the imposition of the death penalty has too often been a function of unqualified counsel or counsel who lacked the resources, including time, funding, and provision of investigative, expert and supportive services, to competently represent their clients, rather than a reasoned decision based on the circumstances of the crime and the background and character of the defendant.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation,

The ABA has long been concerned with the provision of effective counsel for all criminal defendants, especially for those facing the death penalty. In 1989, the ABA first published its Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases, which detailed the kind of competent, effective legal representation that all capital defendants were entitled to receive. Earlier this year, after a two-year effort drawing upon the expertise of a broad group ofdistinguished and experienced judges, lawyers, and academics, the ABA House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved revisions to those Guidelines to update and expand upon the obligations of death penalty jurisdictions to ensure due process of law and justice. “These Guidelines are not aspirational.” They articulate a national standard of care and the minimum that should be required in the defense of capital cases.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation,

The fundamental task of the mitigation specialist is to conduct a comprehensive social history of the defendant and identify all relevant mitigation issues. The 2003 revised edition of the American Bar Association Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases recognizes the mitigation specialist as an “indispensable member of the defense team throughout all capital proceedings.” What are the particular responsibilities and contributions of a mitigation specialist and what makes them so essential to the capital defense team as to warrant this long overdue recognition by the ABA Guidelines?

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation,