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Notable buzz about proportionality review in capital cases

By Douglas A. Berman

A helpful reader passed along some helpful information about recent developments concerning proportionality review in capital cases.  Here are the basics: A cert petition in Holmes v. Louisiana, which questions whether the operation of Louisiana?s capital punishment scheme and the State Supreme Court?s proportionality review violate the Eighth Amendment?s guarantee against arbitrariness in capital sentencing, was recently spotlighted on SCOTUSblog's Petitions to Watch List here.  Notably, Charles Ogletree & the Houston Institute for Racial Justice at Harvard Law School are counsel of record.  And they have posted this press release on the case. Relatedly, Bidish Sarma has an interesting little piece on proportionality review that was just posted on the Cardozo Law Review's online site, which can be accessed via this blog post...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 26, 2009 (boomark / email).