Technical Aspects of the Death Penalty

Brett and Nazim discuss the technical side of the death penalty, including how it is administered, the jury requirements and why Nazim thinks it costs too much.  The cases, Kansas v. Carr and Brumfield v. Cain, help show how the death penalty comes before the Court and also that Court officials administering the death penalty make the same dumb mistakes at work that we all do. Libsyn link

Internet-enhanced annotations (we do not endorse these):

• Aaron Hernandez verdict
• Popular Crime (Amazon Smile link) by Bill James
• That Brad Pitt movie about baseball statistics that has nothing to do with Bill James.
• Old famous crimes that Popular Crime reviews:
  • Lizzie Borden
  • JonBenét Ramsey
  • Patty Hearst
  • The Lindberg Baby
• Reasonable doubt is a qualitative, not a quantitative standard. – Bill James
• The Jinx is looking like a really interesting HBO TV mini-series.
• Casey Anthony might have killed her daughter, but was found innocent.
• Famous people do usually get better results at criminal trials.
• Death Penalties in the world
• Trial of surviving Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
• Justices Kennedy and Breyer ask Congress to reform the US criminal justice system.
• Death penalty sentencing phase
• Death penalty jury instructions
• Payne v. Tennessee changed the constitutionality of victims testifying at death penalty sentencing proceedings, overturning Booth v. Maryland.
• Aggravating and mitigating factors under Federal law
• The purposes of criminal sentencing (with bonus purpose!):
  • Isolating the perpetrator from society
  • Retribution for the crimes
  • Rehabilitation of the perpetrator
  • While deterrence is a purpose, it’s pretty widely recognized that the degree of punishment has little impact on whether people will commit crimes, as comparing crime rates in jurisdictions with the death penalty to those without it shows.
• On the other hand, criminals who go to prison, often commit more crimes.
• Brumfield suffers from mental retardation in the courts’ eyes, although we know that use of that term is offensive to many and its use deprecated by mental health professionals.
• Atkins hearings are mental health determinations based on Atkins v. Virginia.
• Court proceedings cost and do plenty. Of the three branches of the US government, it is the least funded, and often considered outright underfunded. This is definitely the case in many state courts, as can be seen clearly when you visit their facilities in a state of disrepair, as anyone who walks through an old courthouse can testify. Ironically, these courts shoulder the bulk of our criminal court proceedings.
• Mutual antagonism is a longstanding tradition.
• Jurors take their jobs pretty seriously (pdf link at top right). A book also says so. And this attorney.
• If you want to know more about criminal law, check out the excellent Sentencing Law Policy blog.

The lethal injection room at San Quentin State Prison, completed in 2010. Source: flickr.