Capital Punishment and Race Discrimination
Race detrimentally affects the administration of capital punishment in the United States.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment and Resentencing
Sometimes a defendant facing the death penalty once will have to undergo another trial for the same capital offense and face the death penalty again.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment and Sentencing
Currently, forty jurisdictions (thirty-eight states, the federal government, and the military) authorize capital punishment.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment and the Equal Protection Clause Cases
Although the legal institution of slavery was dismantled by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, discrimination on the basis of race and racially motivated violence continued unabated.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment and the Right of Appeal
Appellate review should ensure that no death sentence is handed down in an arbitrary and capricious manner.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment for Felony Murder
Felony murder must not be confused with murder during the course of a felony. Murder during the course of a felony is an ordinary, intentional murder.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment Held Not Cruel and Unusual Punishment under Certain Guidelines
After its finding the death penalty unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), in 1976, the Supreme Court confronted newly enacted death penalty statutes from five states.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment Reversed
In the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalties of three men.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
When Congress in the mid-1990s began considering reforms of federal post-conviction review, lawmakers faced an ongoing dilemma about the scope of habeas corpus law.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Due Process Limits
The Due Process Clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution have played an important role in efforts to promote fairness in the use of capital punishment.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Eighth Amendment Limits
The U. S. Supreme Court has interpreted the prohibition on ‘‘cruel and unusual punishments’’ in the Eighth Amendment to regulate but not forbid the use of capital punishment.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Execution of Innocents
Until recent years, the execution of innocents was mostly an abstract debate.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: History and Politics
It will be useful to examine this topic by examining six eras of American history.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Lynching
Lynching has a long history in the United States, beginning at least around the time of the Revolutionary War.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Methods of Execution
Jurisdictions with capital punishment use one or more of the following methods to implement the sentence: hanging, firing squad, electrocution, lethal gas, and lethal injection.
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