Tarlton Law Library
Jamail Center for Legal Research

Current Capital Punishment Legal Literature

About the “Current Capital Punishment Legal Literature” website: The "Current Capital Punishment Legal Literature" website is a resource for keeping informed about current articles related to capital punishment law. The Law Library staff selects capital punishment articles daily from the U.S. legal journals and non-U.S. legal journals published in English. We then input into this database the basic bibliographic informationand an image of the first page of each article. The image of the article's first page will provide readers with a more complete idea of the scope of each article and the biographical background of the authors. Articles will be added two to three times a week, depending on the volume of cites. This page is RSS-enabled. Subscribe to the RSS feed using a feed reader, or RSS-enabled browser (Firefox, Safari, or IE 7) to receive automatic notices of updates. The RSS feed address is http://tarlton.webhost.utexas.edu/punishment/rss.cfm. The Library provides this service under the “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law. Only the first page of an article will be scanned, and images will be deleted after 60 days. This service is for non-commercial, educational purposes only. If you have any questions or comments about this service please contact Jane O'Connell, Director of faculty and student services.

Click article title to view a .pdf file of its first page.
Articles are listed in reverse chronological order:

November 6, 2009

Author: Mark Mills Title: Note, Cruel and Unusual: State v. Mata, the Electric Chair, and the Nebraska Supreme Court's Rejection of a Subjective Intent Requirement in Death Penalty Jurisprudence Citation: 88 Neb. L. Rev. 235 (2009)

October 6, 2009

Author: Christopher Letkewicz Title: Stacking the Deck in Favor of Death: The Illinois Supreme Court's Misinterpretation of Morgan v. Illinois Citation: 2 DePaul J. Soc. Justice 217 (Spring 2009)

September 18, 2009

Author: Ian Loveland Title: How do I kill thee? Let me count the ways: Lethal injection as a means of excecution in the United States Citation: [2009] Public Law 453 (July 2009)

September 15, 2009

Author: Meghan Shapiro Title: How "Future Dangerousness" Catches the Least Culpable Capital Defendants and Undermines the Rationale for the Executions It Supports Citation: 35 American Journal of Criminal Law 145 (Spring 2008)

August 31, 2009

Author: Laura Hils Title: NOTE, Challenges to Lethal Injection After Baze v. Rees: Emmett v. Johnson Citation: 77 University of Cincinnati Law Review 1627 (2009) Author: John P. Cawley, M.D. Title: NOTE, Kentucky's Lethal Injection Protocol Satisfies the Eighth Amendment's Prohibition Against Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Baze v. Rees Citation: 47 Duquesne Law Review 413 (2009) Author: Dwight Aarons Title: Adjudicating Claims of Innocence for the Capitally Condemned in Tennessee: Embracing a Truth Forum Citation: 76 Tennessee Law Review 511 (2009) Author: David C. Baldus et al. Title: Evidence of Racial Discrimination in the Use of the Death Penalty: A Story from Southwest Arkansas (1990-2005) with Special Reference to the Case of Death Row Inmate Frank Williams, Jr. Citation: 76 Tennessee Law Review 555 (2009) Author: Hugo Adam Bedau Title: Racism, Wrongful Convictions, and the Death Penalty Citation: 76 Tennessee Law Review 615 (2009) Author: John H. Blume et al. Title: An Empirical Look at Atkins v. Virginia and its Application in Capital Cases Citation: 76 Tennessee Law Review 627 (2009) Author: Lyn Suzanne Entzeroth Title: The Illusion of Sanity: The Constitutional and Moral Danger of Medicating Condemned Prisoners in Order to Execute Them Citation: 76 Tennessee Law Review 641 (2009) Author: Bradley A. MacLean Title: Effective Capital Defense Representation and the Difficult Client Citation: 76 Tennessee Law Review 661 (2009) Author: Judge Gilbert Stroud Merritt, Jr. Title: Prosecutorial Error in Death Penalty Cases Citation: 76 Tennessee Law Review 677 (2009) Author: Penny J. White Title: Treated Differently in Life But Not in Death: The Execution of the Intellectually Disabled after Atkins v. Virginia Citation: 76 Tennessee Law Review 685 (2009) Author: Pamela A. Wilkins Title: Competency for Execution: The Implications of a Communicative Model of Retribution Citation: 76 Tennessee Law Review 713 (2009)

August 17, 2009

Author: Michael Mello Title: What Came Before We Killed Him: Deconstructing Execution Number 58 Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 849 (2009) Author: Michael N. Burt Title: The Importance of Storytelling at All Stages of a Capital Case Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 877 (2009) Author: Craig Haney Title: On Mitigation as Counter-Narrative: A Case Study of the Hidden Context of Prison Violence Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 911 (2009) Author: Russell Stetler Title: The Unknown Story of a Motherless Child Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 947 (2009) Author: John H. Blume and Sheri Lynn Johnson Title: Back to a Future: Reversing Keith Simpson's Death Sentence and Making Peace with the Victim's Family Through Post-Conviction Investigation Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 963 (2009) Author: Mark E. Olive Title: Narrative Works Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 989 (2009) Author: Sean D. O'Brien Title: Mothers and Sons: The Lloyd Schlup Story Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 1021 (2009) Author: Brittany A. Boswell Title: COMMENT, True Terror: Life after Guantanamo Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 1093 (2009) Author: Melody Dickson Title: COMMENT, Dismantling the Free Will Fairytale: The Importance of Demonstrating the Inability to Overcome in Death Penalty Narratives Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 1123 (2009) Author: Kate Paulman Title: COMMENT, Bringing Life to Legal Writing: How to Use Literary Journalism in Capital Litigation Citation: 77 UMKC Law Review 1147 (2009)

August 11, 2009

Author: Justin D. Levinson Title: Race, Death, and the Complicitous Mind Citation: 58 DePaul Law Review 599 (2009) Author: Michael K. Brown Title: The Death Penalty and the Politics of Racial Resentment in the Post Civil Rights Era Citation: 58 DePaul Law Review 645 (2009) Author: Albert W. Alschuler Title: Plea Bargaining and the Death Penalty Citation: 58 DePaul Law Review 671 (2009) Author: Andrea D. Lyon Title: Mixed Media: Popular Culture and Race and their Effect on Jury Selection Citation: 58 DePaul Law Review 681 (2009) Author: Craig Haney Title: Media Criminology and the Death Penalty Citation: 58 DePaul Law Review 689 (2009) Author: Rachel Lyon Title: Media, Race, Crime, and Punishment: Re-Framing Stereotypes in Crime and Human Rights Issues Citation: 58 DePaul Law Review 741 (2009)

August 10, 2009

Author: Bruce J. Winick Title: The Supreme Court's Evolving Death Penalty Jurisprudence: Severe Mental Illness as the Next Frontier Citation: 50 Boston College Law Review 785 (2009)

July 29, 2009

Author: James B. Johnston Title: Executing Capital Punishment via Case Study: A Socratic Chat About New Jersey's Abolition of the Death Penalty and Convincing Other States to Follow Suit Citation: 34 Journal of Legislation 1 (2008) Author: Jessica Morgan Title: NOTE, Lethal Injection: A Constitutional Cocktail? Citation: 60 Mercer Law Review 1463 (2009)

July 16, 2009

Author: Sandra L. Simpson Title: Everyone Else is Doing It, Why Can't We? A New Look at the Use of Statistical Data in Death Penalty Cases Citation: 12 Journal of Gender, Race and Justice 509 (2009) Author: Bethany C. Bryant Title: COMMENT, Expanding Atkins and Roper: A Diagnostic Approach to Excluding the Death Penalty as Punishment for Schizophrenic Offenders Citation: 78 Mississippi Law Journal 905 (2009) Author: Russell G. Murphy Title: Executing the Death Penalty: International Law Influences on United States Supreme Court Decision-Making in Capital Punishment Cases Citation: 32 Suffolk Transnational Law Review 599 (2009) Author: Adine S. Momoh Title: COMMENT, Gaming the System: "Are You Saying If We Plead Guilty We Will Not Be Able to Be Sentenced to Death?" Citation: 35 William Mitchell Law Review 5119 (2009)

July 6, 2009

Author: Damian P. Fedoryka Title: The Demise of Capital Punishment in the Culture of Death and the Relationship Between Pain and Punishment Citation: 7 Ave Maria Law Review 527 (2009) Author: Ryan Ellersick Title: COMMENT, Perpetuating the Constitutional Uncertainty of Lethal Injection Protocols: A Comment on Baze v. Rees Citation: 44 Gonzaga Law Review 553 (2009) Author: Eric Berger Title: Lethal Injection and the Problem of Constitutional Remedies Citation: 27 Yale Law and Policy Review 259 (2009)

June 29, 2009

Author: Richard Klein Title: An Analysis of the Death Penalty Jurisprudence of the October 2007 Supreme Court Term Citation: 25 Touro Law Review 625 (2009) Author: Katie Morgan and Michael J. Zydney Mannheimer Title: The Impact of Information Overload on the Capital Jury's Ability to Assess Aggravating and Mitigating Factors Citation: 17 William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 1089 (2009)

June 4, 2009

Author: Katherine Barnes, David Sloss, and Stephen Thaman Title: Place Matters (Most): An Empirical Study of Prosecutorial Decision-Making in Death-Eligible Cases Citation: 51 Arizona Law Review 305 (2009) Author: Justin F. Marceau Title: Lifting the Haze of Baze: Lethal Injection, The Eighth Amendment, and Plurality Opinions Citation: 41 Arizona State Law Journal 159 (2009) Author: Andrew Novak Title: NOTE, Guilty of Murder with Extenuating Circumstances: Transparency and the Mandatory Death Penalty in Botswana Citation: 27 Boston University International Law Journal 173 (2009) Author: Natasha Minsker Title: Prosecutorial Misconduct in Death Penalty Cases Citation: 45 California Western Law Review 373 (2009) Author: Anthony E. Giardino Title: Combat Veterans, Mental Health Issues, and the Death Penalty: Addressing the Impact of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury Citation: 77 Fordham Law Review 2955 (2009) Author: Stephen K. Rice, Danielle Dirks, and Julie J. Exline Title: Of Guilt, Defiance, and Repentance: Evidence from the Texas Death Chamber Citation: 26 Justice Quarterly 295 (2009) Author: Judy Eaton and Anna Theuer Title: Apology and Remorse in the Last Statements of Death Row Prisoners Citation: 26 Justice Quarterly 327 (2009) Author: Robert T. Plunkert Title: COMMENT, The Aryan Brotherhood, Crawford, and the Death Penalty Citation: 53 Saint Louis University Law Journal 663 (2009) Author: Kelly J. Minor Title: NOTE, Prohibiting the Death Penalty for the Rape of a Child While Overlooking Wrongful Execution: Kennedy v. Louisiana Citation: 54 South Dakota Law Review 300 (2009)