5 As peculiar as the practice is … Harris v. Alabama, 513 U.S. 504 (1995); Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447 (1984).
6 Mr. Dunkins suffered from intellectual disabilities … See Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989).
7 Thirteen years later … Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), explaining that a national consensus had been reached against executing the mentally ill after state legislatures adopted new laws limiting the practice following Penry.
8 They killed him … Peter Applebome, “2 Electric Jolts in Alabama Execution,” New York Times (July 15, 1989), available at nytimes.com/1989/07/15/us/2-electric-jolts-in-alabama-execution.html, accessed April 30, 2014; see also “Two Attempts at Execution Kill Dunkins,” Gadsden Times (July 14, 1989), available at news.google.com/newspapers?id=02cfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3NQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3122%2C1675665, accessed April 30, 2014.
9 The Court decided to bar claims … Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509 (1982).
10 the Court rejected a constitutional challenge … Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989); Penry, 492 U.S. at 305; McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).
11 “Let’s get on with it”… Bryan Stevenson, “The Hanging Judges,” The Nation (October 14, 1996), 12.
12 “Mr. Stevenson, I’m calling to let you know”… Richardson v. Thigpen, 492 U.S. 934 (1989).
13 I thought about the botched execution … Applebome, “2 Electric Jolts in Alabama Execution.”
CHAPTER FIVE: OF THE COMING OF JOHN
1 Monroe County is a “dry county”… Monroe County is now technically considered “moist.” The city of Monroeville and Frisco have approved laws permitting the sale of some alcoholic beverages.
CHAPTER SIX: SURELY DOOMED
1 Alabama had more juveniles sentenced to death … Victor L. Streib, Death Penalty for Juveniles (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987).
2 While the Supreme Court had upheld … Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989); Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988); Wilkins v. Missouri was consolidated with the Stanford decision.
CHAPTER SEVEN: JUSTICE DENIED
1 We found court records revealing … Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972); Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103 (1935).
2 Some states authorized the family … Peggy M. Tobolowsky, “Victim Participation in the Criminal Justice Process: Fifteen Years after the President’s Task Force on Victims of Crime,” New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement 25 (1999): 21, available at heinonline/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/nejccc25&div=7&g_sent=1&collection=journals, accessed April 30, 2014.
3 Thirty-six states enacted laws … Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 509n12 (1987).
4 The Court agreed … Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 506n8 (“We are troubled by the implication that defendants whose victims were assets to their community are more deserving of punishment than those whose victims are perceived to be less worthy”).
5 The Court’s decision was widely criticized … Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 827 (1991) (“A State may legitimately conclude that evidence about the victim and about the impact of the murder on the victim’s family is relevant to the jury’s decision as to whether or not the death penalty should be imposed”).
6 States found countless ways … Tobolowsky, “Victim Participation,” 48–95.
7 Some states made executions … Michael Lawrence Goodwin, “An Eyeful for an Eye—An Argument Against Allowing the Families of Murder Victims to View Executions,” Brandeis Journal of Family Law 36 (1997): 585, available at heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/branlaj36&div=38&g_sent=1&collection=journals, accessed April 30, 2014.
8 Megan’s Law, for example … Scott Matson and Roxanne Lieb, “Megan’s Law: A Review of State and Federal Legislation,” Washington State Institute for Public Policy (October 1997), available at wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/meganslaw.pdf, accessed June 13, 2013.
9 Press coverage hyped the personal nature … Chris Greer and Robert Reiner, “Mediated Mayhem: Media, Crime, Criminal Justice,” in The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, ed. Mike Maguire, Rodney Morgan, and Robert Reiner (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 245–78.
10 The study conducted for that case … McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 286 (1987), citing David C. Baldus et al., “Comparative Review of Death Sentences: An Empirical Study of the Georgia Experience,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 74 (1983): 661.
11 In Alabama, even though 65 percent … American Bar Association, “Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems: The Alabama Death Penalty Assessment Report” (June 2006), available at americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/moratorium/assessmentproject/alabama/report.authcheckdam.pdf, accessed June 14, 2013.
12 Black defendant and white victim pairings … McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 286–87, citing Baldus et al., “Comparative Review”; U.S. General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities, 1990, GAO/GGD-90-57 (“In 82 percent of the studies, race of victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks”).