Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2012
Abstract
My exploration of the case for an Eighth Amendment bar against executing the long-serving elderly will begin with a review of the representation of the elderly on Americas death rows and a survey of the very limited avenues of relief currently available to them on the basis of age. I will then discuss the attribution problem by asking at whose door should 'fault' for long delays between condemnation and consummation of a capital sentence be laid--the prisoner, the state, or the working through of due process? For many jurists, attribution of fault is critical to resolving the question of whether the long serving of any age should be permitted to exit death row alive. I will then argue that the long-serving elderly should be relieved of both death row confinement and the continuing threat of execution.
Publication Title
Brooklyn Law Review
Volume
77
First Page
1089
Keywords
Lackey claim, Lackey-for-the-Elderly, Eighth Amendment, Death Penalty
Recommended Citation
Elizabeth Rapaport,
A Modest Proposal: The Aged of Death Row Should be Deemed too Old to Execute,
77
Brooklyn Law Review
1089
(2012).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facultyscholarship/38