NCJ Number
137819
Journal
Criminal Justice Review Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring 1992) Pages: 20-43
Date Published
1992
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This study examines the contributions that briefwriters have made to the Supreme Court's death penalty jurisprudence in cases decided from 1963 to 1985.
Abstract
The discussion examines three aspects of the briefwriters' contributions to evolving capital punishment doctrine: the use of social science research evidence relevant to death penalty issues, literal textual similarities between briefs and the justices' opinions, and diverse matters concerning the contents of briefs and their correspondence to capital punishment decisions. The briefwriters have facilitated greatly the Court's consideration of empirical issues related to capital punishment by consistently and competently bringing social science research to the fore of their briefs. However, the justices have not been persuaded to adopt the logical implications of such information and only rarely have relied upon the briefs for the precise language that characterizes their opinions. The discussion concludes with a series of observations about the briefs, the briefwriters, and the law of capital punishment as ruled in these Supreme Court cases. 5 tables and 87 references (Author abstract modified)