The Supreme Court denied cert yesterday in two victim impact statement cases. See Kelly v. California, 07-11703 & Zamudio v. California. The Supreme Court's website actually has a link to the video that was used in the capital sentencing proceeding in Kelly v. California. Go here. This video, together with Justice Stevens's opinion explaining his dissent from the denial of cert, id., must give pause to almost any reasonable person about the role of victim impact statements. And don't the video in Kelly and J. Stevens's dissent raise important and interesting questions about the reach of Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172 (1997)(wherein the Supreme Court embraced what was later dubbed "narrative relevance")?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment