Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Capital Defense Weekly

Criminal Law

: Capital Defense Weekly

Failed public policy

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

Judge Boyce Martin, the former Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit, notes in concurrence  today in Wiles v. Bagley, No. 05-371, his continued concern about capital punishment as a public policy issue, especially in lean economic times: Now in my thirtieth year as a judge on this Court, I have had an inside view of our system of capital punishment almost since the death penalty was reintroduced in the wake of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972).  During that time, judges, lawyers, and elected officials have expended great time and resources attempting to ensure the fairness, proportionality, and accuracy that the Constitution demands of our system. But those efforts have utterly failed. Capital punishment in this country remains ?arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on April 14, 2009 (boomark / email).