scholarly journals New Southern Gothic

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aimee Briel Clesi

Investigating the demise of the writ of habeas corpus under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), this paper questions the callused lineage of cases upholding Title I of AEDPA and contends that states must take up a statutory method like Texas’s to review defendant’s claims of actual innocence to ensure that the legal system designed under the U.S. Constitution remains fair and just not only in theory, but in practice. Using imagery from the southern gothic genre, this paper also reveals that “the death belt” most adequately portrays the reality of the death penalty, as many appeals based on actual innocence originate from this area.

Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson

We have investigated the differences in support for the U.S. Supreme Court among black, Hispanic, and white Americans, catalogued the variation in African Americans’ group attachments and experiences with legal authorities, and examined how those latter two factors shape individuals’ support for the U.S. Supreme Court, that Court’s decisions, and for their local legal system. We take this opportunity to weave our findings together, taking stock of what we have learned from our analyses and what seem like fruitful paths for future research. In the process, we revisit Positivity Theory. We present a modified version of the theory that we hope will guide future inquiry on public support for courts, both in the United States and abroad.


Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Paul Baumgardner

When coronavirus began to descend upon the United States, religious freedom advocates across the country sounded the alarm that citizens’ religious practices and institutions were under threat. Although some of the most extreme arguments championed by these advocates were not validated by our legal system, many were. This article explores the underappreciated gains made by religious freedom advocates before the U.S. Supreme Court over the past year. As a result of the “Pandemic Court”, religious freedom in the United States has been rewritten. This promises to radically change the educational, employment, and health prospects of millions of Americans for the rest of the pandemic and long afterwards.


2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 862-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shanhe Jiang ◽  
Eric G. Lambert ◽  
Jin Wang ◽  
Toyoji Saito ◽  
Rebecca Pilot

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. A78-A78
Author(s):  
B. H.

In a court battle beginning today, a judge will be asked for what is believed to be the first time to determine whether children have the right to take legal action on their own behalf. At the heart of the dispute in a Lake County, Fla., courtroom is a small, bespectacled boy who claims his childhood has been destroyed and who is doing battle with two formidable adversaries: his parents and the U.S. legal system. Gregory K., age 11, (his name is being withheld by the court) has taken the unprecedented step of filing a petition to divorce himself from his parents ... Judge C. Richard Singeltary is being asked to decide whether Gregory has the right to divorce his parents. The court is also being asked to allow Gregory's foster parents—with whom the boy has been living for nine month—to adopt him.


Author(s):  
Bradley Curtis A

International Law in the U.S. Legal System provides a wide-ranging overview of how international law intersects with the domestic legal system of the United States, and points out various unresolved issues and areas of controversy. Curtis Bradley explains the structure of the U.S. legal system and the various separation of powers and federalism considerations implicated by this structure, especially as these considerations relate to the conduct of foreign affairs. Against this backdrop, he covers all of the principal forms of international law: treaties, executive agreements, decisions and orders of international institutions, customary international law, and jus cogens norms. He also explores a number of issues that are implicated by the intersection of U.S. law and international law, such as treaty withdrawal, foreign sovereign immunity, international human rights litigation, war powers, extradition, and extraterritoriality. This book highlights recent decisions and events relating to the topic, including various actions taken during the Trump administration, while also taking into account relevant historical materials, including materials relating to the U.S. Constitutional Founding. Written by one of the most cited international law scholars in the United States, the book is a resource for lawyers, law students, legal scholars, and judges from around the world.


Killing Times ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 150-184
Author(s):  
David Wills

A different appropriation of the instant takes place in the case of extrajudicial killing by drones. That practice by the U.S., begun in 2002, has remained shrouded in secrecy. However one counts the victims, drone executions outnumber by a huge margin American judicial executions, and the drone penalty thus represents a particular paradigm of the American death penalty: for the most part out of sight and out of mind. It raises in turn questions about American democracy and the deadly criminal conduct of its foreign policy, but also produces a perspective that brings into focus the long series of historical relations between slavery and the death penalty, as well as lynching and the persistence of racism in the application of capital punishment. Furthermore, the sovereign secrecy of drone attacks produces a structural space shared by the U.S. president and the terrorist s/he attacks.


Author(s):  
Cliff Sloan ◽  
Lauryn Fraas

This chapter introduces the reader to key cases analyzing claims of intellectual disability, describes the current clinical definition and diagnosis, and provides an overview of recurring issues in capital litigation. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individuals with intellectual disability may not be executed. The Court subsequently clarified that current medical standards must be used in assessing claims of intellectual disability in capital cases. The clinical diagnosis requires assessing three factors: (a) deficits in intellectual functioning; (b) deficits in adaptive behavior; and (c) the onset of deficits during the developmental period. Courts must be informed by current medical standards regarding issues that arise, including the standard error of measurement in IQ scores, the problems of offsetting weaknesses in adaptive behavior with perceived strengths, and other clinical topics. The principle that the death penalty must not be imposed on individuals with intellectual disability signals important responsibilities for social work practitioners.


Author(s):  
Edward A. Jr. Purcell

This chapter discusses the variety of types of cases Justice Antonin Scalia heard on the U.S. Supreme Court and notes their variety as well as the fact that in a few areas Scalia took originalist positions that brought results commonly regarded as “liberal,” such as his interpretation of the Confrontation Clause. The chapter then turns to the bulk of the cases where he supported “conservative” results. It points out that he used his originalist jurisprudence vigorously to defend certain positions that involved his own most intensely held personal values (those dealing with abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty, and assisted suicide), and it suggests that his originalism may have been designed to justify his views on those issues. The chapter then suggests that the true test of his jurisprudence and methodology lay not in his actions in those cases but rather in the more general run of cases where he applied his jurisprudential principles inconsistently, failed to apply them at all, or actually rejected them. That large and final category of cases constituted the majority of his decisions and opinions, the chapter argues, and it provides the best ground for testing his jurisprudential claims and ultimately identifying the true nature of his jurisprudence and the significance of his judicial career.


2020 ◽  
pp. 264-270
Author(s):  
Arzoo Osanloo

This epilogue looks at the modern bureaucratic state. It considers what it means for a state's regulatory scheme to be comprised of such a range of free-roaming and diverse actors who operate in a semi-autonomous social field and participate in shaping and regulating its operations. Consequently, the epilogue reflects on what forgiveness work means for rights, law, and the higher aims of the Qur'anic mandate of mercy. Mercy means a lessening of deserved punishment (leniency) and, at the same time, mercy's very presence suggests injustice lies everywhere. That is, where there is mercy, there is injustice. However, mercy can play a crucial role in bringing about justice. The insistence on mercy, even if it is a power from above, can offer a crucial corrective to injustice. In some ways, this feature of the legal system explains the involvement of government agents in forgiveness work and suggests the basis for the state's differential treatment of anti-death penalty or human right activists versus forgiveness workers.


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