Crime and Punishment Paper Prep

Research Paper Prep

  A. Topic:   Capital Punishment
  B. Thesis: This paper will discuss the recent developments regarding capital punishment in the United States, focusing primarily upon cases and events since 1985. Since the U.S. Supreme Court held that state death penalty statutes can be constitutionally valid in 1976 (Gregg v. Georgia), most states have enacted death penalty statutes. Most of the litigation regarding these statutes has dealt with the technical legal aspects of trial and sentencing procedure; the result has been a very lengthy appeals process where the time period between sentencing and actual execution can exceed a decade. Thus, since 1992 the U.S. Supreme Court has begun to express a certain amount of annoyance towards defendants and their attorneys who file seemingly endless appeals, especially writs of habeas corpus, in the federal courts. State supreme courts have also begun to limit the number of appeals which can be filed in state courts, explaining that defendants should litigate all issues in their initial appeals.
  C. Annotate Bibliography:
Baldous, D. C., Woodworth, G. G., & Pulaski Jr, C. A. (1990). Equal Justice and the Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis. Boston: Northwestern University Press.
A collection of readings on the pros and cons of the death penalty.   The book brings together a selection of 40 essays and includes statistical and research data, and recent Supreme Court decisions.
Dolan, M. (1993, July 30). State High Court Limits Death Row Appeals. Los Angeles Times , pp. A1, A27.
An article from the LA Times about the California Supreme court limiting the amount of appeals for death row inmates.
Frost, E. (1993). Arbitrary Prosecution? ABA Journal , 30.
Lungren, D., & Krotoski, M. (1992). Public Policy Lessons from the Robert Alton Harris Case. UCLA Law Review , 295-326.
A look into the case of an inmate executed in 1992 for kidnapping and killing 2 teenage boys and then using their car...