Settling and Pleading for LWOP

2021 ◽  
pp. 95-126
Author(s):  
Marion Vannier
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Death Sentences

In courtrooms, defence attorneys, too, rely on LWOP to avoid a death sentence for their client. In examining sentencing pathways, Chapter 3 finds that very little space is given to prosecutors, lawyers, and judges and jurors to discuss or debate, evaluate, and review the severity of LWOP. In part, this has to do with how the sentencing mechanisms—such as plea bargaining, mandatory application, and proportionality review—detach the offender, in particular his or her level of culpability, from the punishment. This chapter triangulates textual analysis of criminal and sentencing laws in California and interviews with prosecutors and defence lawyers. It also relies on a small statistical component of data on LWOP and death sentences collected from two district attorney’s offices (Alameda and Los Angeles).

scholarly journals Death As a Bargaining Chip: Plea Bargaining and the Future of Virginia's Death Penalty

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Douglass
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Capital Case ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
The Future

Virginia now averages less than a single death sentence each year, a far cry from its not-too-distant history as the second most active death penalty state in the nation. The numbers alone tempt us to forecast the death of Virginia's death penalty: a death by disuse. But those numbers leave much of the story untold. The plummeting number of death sentences is only the diminishing tip of a larger, more stable iceberg of capital case litigation. That iceberg is melting very slowly, if at all.

Death Penalty Disposition in China: What Matters?

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yudu Li ◽  
Dennis Longmire ◽  
Hong Lu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Sentencing Decisions ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Using Data

In theory, sentencing decisions should be driven by legal factors, not extra-legal factors. However, some empirical research on the death penalty in the United States shows significant relationships between offender and victim characteristics and death sentence decisions. Despite the fact that China frequently imposes death sentences, few studies have examined these sanctions to see if similar correlations occur in China’s capital cases. Using data from published court cases in China involving three violent crimes—homicide, robbery, and intentional assault—this study examines the net impact of offender’s gender, race, and victim–offender relationship on death sentence decisions in China. Our overall multiple regression results indicate that, after controlling for other legal and extra-legal variables, an offender’s gender, race, and victim–offender relationship did not produce similar results in China when compared with those in the United States. In contrast, it is the legal factors that played the most significant role in influencing the death penalty decisions. The article concludes with explanations and speculations on the unique social, cultural, and legal conditions in China that may have contributed to these correlations.

scholarly journals The Death Penalty: Should the Judge or the Jury Decide Who Dies?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie P. Hans ◽  
John H. Blume ◽  
Amelia C. Hritz ◽  
Sheri Lynn Johnson ◽  
Caisa E. Royer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Capital Trials ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Jury Decision

12 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 70-99 (2015)This article addresses the effect of judge versus jury decision making through analysis of a database of all capital sentencing phase hearing trials in the State of Delaware from 1977– 2007. Over the three decades of the study, Delaware shifted responsibility for death penalty sentencing from the jury to the judge. Currently, Delaware is one of the handful of states that gives the judge the final decision-making authority in capital trials. Controlling for a number of legally relevant and other predictor variables, we find that the shift to judge sentencing significantly increased the number of death sentences. Statutory aggravating factors, stranger homicides, and the victim’s gender also increased the likelihood of a death sentence, as did the county of the homicide. We reflect on the implications of these results for debates about the constitutionality of judge sentencing in capital cases.

The Shadow of Subversion

2020 ◽  
pp. 201-244
Author(s):  
David M. Doyle ◽  
Liam O’Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
The State ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Irish Government ◽  
Additional Protection ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

This chapter examines the abolition of the death penalty in Ireland. The Criminal Justice Act 1964, introduced by the Minister for Justice and staunch abolitionist Charles Haughey, removed the death penalty for all offences apart from murder committed under certain circumstances. Among these was murder of an on-duty member of the Garda Síochána, who, the government decided, warranted the additional protection assumed to be afforded them by the death penalty. The legislation was grounded in lingering fears, as old as the state itself, about anti-state subversive activities, mainly those likely to be carried out by the IRA. In light of this, the chapter compares the abolition experiences of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. That the death penalty was a dubious deterrent under the southern legislation was proven by a spate of garda murders (and resultant death sentences) in the 1970s and 1980s perpetrated by individuals specifically targeted by the 1964 Act. The potency of the 1964 Act was also undermined by the singular unwillingness of any Irish government even consider confirming a death sentence, especially in light of the abolitionist consensus among western European governments.

Using sentencing evidence to effectively establish the balanced application of the death penalty in China

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 143-157
Author(s):  
Xu Huijun
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Legal Information ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Peking University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
Insight Into

Whether a death sentence is fair or not is an fundamental question for a country’s criminal justice system, yet in practice, similar cases still occasionally receive differing judgments. In response to this problem, this paper has proposed to take sentencing evidence as the breakthrough for the balanced application of death penalty. This paper begins by analysing written judgments from 40 cases, which involve 69 individuals and have been sampled from all those archived under the Gazettes section by the Beidafabao,1 Peking University Centre for Legal Information. This analysis provides considerable insight into the type of sentencing evidence admitted in capital cases, as well as the impact that principal evidence has on where death sentences are imposed. Next, in accordance with the basic problems of evidence law, this paper separates out sentencing evidence of capital cases from conventional theories that confuse it with convictions. Taking sentencing evidence as the core, the objective of the empirical analysis and theoretical discussion is to establish guidelines as well as a policy analysis for capital cases in China in the future.

scholarly journals Mitigation Matters

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Blume ◽  
Russell Stetler
Keyword(s):  
Death Sentence ◽  
Comprehensive Investigation ◽  
True Story ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Foregone Conclusion ◽  
Life Sentences

Mitigation matters. It works. It literally saves lives every day, often in cases in which a death sentence seems a foregone conclusion. But mitigation matters — it works — only if the capital defense team is committed both to conducting a comprehensive investigation of the client’s life and to developing and integrating the results of the investigation into a compelling, credible narrative for life. This commitment to uncovering and telling the client’s true story must be complete and unwavering. When it is, life sentences follow. When it is not, undeserved death sentences are imposed.

The Decline of the Judicial Override

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 539-557
Author(s):  
Michael L. Radelet ◽  
G. Ben Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Eighth Amendment ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
National Consensus ◽  
Key Questions

Since 1972, the Supreme Court has experimented with regulation of the death penalty, seeking the illusive goals of consistency, reliability, and fairness. In this century, the court held that the Sixth Amendment prohibited judges from making findings necessary to impose a death sentence. Separately, the court held that the Eighth Amendment safeguarded evolving standards of decency as measured by national consensus. In this article, we discuss the role of judges in death determinations, identifying jurisdictions that initially (post 1972) allowed judge sentencing and naming the individuals who today remain under judge-imposed death sentences. The decisions guaranteeing a jury determination have so far been applied only to cases that have not undergone initial review in state courts. Key questions remain unresolved, including whether the evolving standards of decency permit the execution of more than 100 individuals who were condemned to death by judges without a jury's death verdict before implementation of the rules that now require unanimous jury votes.

scholarly journals The Impact of Angry Versus Sad Victim Impact Statements on Mock Jurors’ Sentencing Decisions in a Capital Trial

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 862-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Narina Nuñez ◽  
Bryan Myers ◽  
Benjamin M. Wilkowski ◽  
Kimberly Schweitzer
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Content ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Mock Jurors ◽  
Sentencing Decisions ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Victim Impact Statements ◽  
Capital Trial ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Penalty Phase

The present study tested the effects of angry and sad victim impact statements (VIS) on jury eligible participants’ decisions. Death qualified participants ( N = 581) watched the penalty phase of a capital trial that varied the presence and emotional content of the VIS (angry, sad, or no VIS) along with the strength of mitigating evidence (weak or strong). Results revealed that Angry VIS led to an increase in death sentences, whereas Sad VIS did not. Furthermore, participants who reported becoming angry during the trial were more likely to render a death sentence, but participants who became sad during the trial were not. No interaction was found between VIS and strength of mitigating evidence, but participants exposed to the angry VIS did rate the mitigating evidence as less important to their decisions. The results indicate that VIS are not inherently biasing, nor are all emotions equally impactful on sentencing decisions.

I Cannot Allow This Boy to Be Executed

Lethal State ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 84-110
Author(s):  
Seth Kotch
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
The State ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Parole Board ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Executive Clemency

This chapter explains how executive clemency—the state governor’s power to reduce a death penalty to a lesser sentence—helped make capital punishment function in North Carolina. With mandatory death sentences for four serious crimes (murder, rape, burglary, and arson), judges had no choice but to pronounce a death penalty upon conviction. This left it up to the governor to decide whether or not the convicted person would be executed. Although this power was reserved for the governor, it was soon transferred to a parole board, which reviewed each death sentence and invited community comment. This process most benefitted teenagers and women. Perversely, more African Americans received commutations than whites because of the high rate of error in their trials.

scholarly journals Examining the Sources of Racial Bias in Potentially Capital Cases

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Logistic Regressions ◽  
Research Questions

While prior research has uncovered racial disparities in the administration of death sentences, little attention has been devoted to earlier stages in the capital punishment processes. To understand the locus of racial bias within death penalty institutions, this study examines the entry of homicide cases into Los Angeles County’s criminal justice system during a 5-year period. This two-part analysis seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) Does victim/defendant race influence homicide clearance and death penalty charging decisions? and (2) if so, does the likelihood of clearance mediate the effect of victim race on death penalty charges? Logistic regressions indicate that cases involving Latino victims are less likely to be cleared. Moreover, cases with Black and Latino victims are less likely to be prosecuted with a death penalty–eligible charge. Racial disparities accumulate across these stages, with clearance patterns influencing subsequent death penalty charging decisions. Results underscore the cumulative nature of racial within criminal justice institutions. By linking police and prosecution outcomes, these findings also highlight the interrelationship between criminal justice agencies.

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