Understanding Capital Punishment Law - 3rd Edition - Linda E. Carter

Understanding Capital Punishment Law 3rd Edition Linda E. Carter ISBN 9780769849027

This treatise provides a comprehensive overview of the complex legal issues surrounding capital punishment. Understanding Capital Punishment Law focuses primarily on the constitutional principles governing death penalty proceedings in the United States and is organized into five parts.

Part I: Overview
These chapters examine arguments for and against capital punishment and introduce the legal frameworks used to analyze Eighth Amendment issues.

Part II: Trial Procedures
This section explores the constitutional doctrines that shape capital trials, including the division between the guilt phase and the penalty phase. Topics include aggravating and mitigating circumstances, categorical exclusions from the death penalty (such as intellectual disability), the role of aggravating evidence in narrowing the class of death-eligible defendants, the use of victim-impact evidence, the presentation of mitigating evidence to ensure individualized sentencing, and the decision-making process distinguishing weighing and non-weighing states, as well as life-without-parole instructions.

Part III: Post-Trial Procedures
These chapters address direct appeals, habeas corpus proceedings—with particular attention to ineffective assistance of counsel and claims of innocence—clemency, and issues arising on death row, including insanity and the “death row phenomenon.”

Part IV: Systemic Issues
This section examines systemic concerns such as race and gender discrimination in capital sentencing, the constitutional and practical challenges posed by defendants who volunteer for the death penalty, and international treaty obligations implicated in capital cases.

Part V: Future Issues
The final chapter considers emerging and unresolved issues in capital punishment law, including the constitutionality of executing juveniles and the impact of terrorism on death penalty jurisprudence.

Together, these sections provide a clear, structured, and in-depth guide to the constitutional, procedural, and systemic dimensions of capital punishment law.

Understanding Capital Punishment Law 3rd Edition Linda E. Carter ISBN 9780769849027, 978-0769849027 & 9780327184188

Authors
Linda E. Carter
Ellen S. Kreitzberg
Scott W. Howe