The Appeals Process In Death Penalty Cases

This paper will briefly cover the world history of the use of the death penalty as well as its current use in the United States of America. The paper will discuss the statistics of how often the death penalty is utilized as a sentence for capital crimes as well as the time a convicted person spends awaiting the death penalty to be imposed. This paper will utilize research from published sources. This paper will also review current death penalty issues are the occurring in our court systems today.

Looking at the data given about the murders in the past 40 years in Nebraska we see that less than one percent have actually ended in an execution. According to the U.S Bureau of Justice Statistics the average amount of time a person spent on death row in 2013 was 15 years and 6 months, but there have been cases that last upwards of 30 years. Adam Liptak, a writer for the New York Times, tells the story of Manuel Valle. “When he was 27, Manuel Valle killed a police officer in Coral Gables, Fla. In September, when he was 61, Mr. Valle was put to death for his crime.” (Liptak) Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote about that case and then went on to say “Our constitution was written at a time when the period between sentencing and execution could be measured in days or weeks, not decades”.

In many cases the person in question is sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole. Do you know how much that costs you? The current annual cost for keeping an inmate in a state prison is $47,102, times the thousands of inmates also in prison for life is roughly around 59million a year. For a person to be put on to death row is around $7.2 million for three years. For a year of life in prison compared to three years of death row is a huge difference. Which means it could cut down the amount

The death penalty to many people could be considered unconstitutional under the eighth and the fourteenth amendment 's. People fear nothing more than death itself because death is final. Execution dates being carried out promptly with assigned dates after a fair trial would discourage almost anyone from committing future crimes that are worthy of execution. We as a society are based on the need for retribution and vengance. Making a wrongdoer pay the price equivalent to the price the wrongdoer did. Sparsely carrying out executions prolongs the mental and emotional suffering of the victim 's family and friends. It cost taxpayers millions of dollars per year, more than general population to house a death row inmates. Allowing death row inmates to sit on death row for 25 plus years is a lugsury most dont deserve. With less than 10% of all inmates being exonorated in the past 200 years of death penalties it is unclear why executions are not more readily carried out.

In the united states there have been one hundred and sixty two people exonerated from death row since nineteen seventy three. According to deathpenaltyinformation.org (“innocence cases”). Early as last year former death row inmate Isaiah Mccoy was released from death row inmate under the charges of murder “Deputy Attorney General R. David Favata belittled McCoy in front of the jury for choosing to represent himself, made intimidating comments to McCoy during a break in proceedings, then lied to the judge about having made those comments. McCoy waived his right to a jury for his retrial, but was represented by counsel” deathpenaltyinformation.org (“innocence cases”). There was no physical evidence holding Mccoy for the murder upon his release he MCcoy said “ I just want to say to all those out there going through the same thing I'm going through 'keep faith, keep fighting. Two years ago, I was on death row. At 25, I was given a death sentence – and I am today alive and well and kicking and a free man." seeing that a free man was put in jail for a murder he didn't commit and given the death penalty is a scary process I couldn't imagine what McCoy was feeling this is why the death penalty should be

The state court is comprised of nine judges. The district attorney that prosecuted will represent both the victim and the state’s interest in state court. The defendant’s lawyer will have to argue the conviction be overturned because it is a violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights. The defendant now called the “appellee” will have to use the defense that there was lack of intent, lack of knowledge, insanity, intoxication or self-defense when convicted of capital murder. (“Background”, n.d.) Awaiting a decision can take up to 22 months. Once the Court of Criminal Appeals denies relief, the trial court may set a defendant's execution date. This is defendant's first execution date, the trial court may not set it before 91 days from the date of the order. Awaiting for the decision on a direct appeal could take up to 27 months. (“Capital Punishment in Context”,

According to Banks, the amount of prison spending has increased six times from 1983 to 2008, and “the correctional population has tripled in 25 years.” (Banks, 2013, p. 139) The United States alone holds the highest percentage of incarceration in the world. In addition to racial discrimination, and offenses targetting minorities, the biggest issue in our prison system is the fact that most of these prisoners are held in prison longer than they should in which they await for trial. It’s sad to think that as an alleged offender who requests a speedy trial does not reach his date of trial as fast as it is said to be. According to the Miami-Dade County daily jail population statistics, the longest stay of a inmate who is still awaiting trial for 1st Degree Murder in 4,358 days which is roughly 11 years and 11 months, and currently there are 103 who are waiting trial with more than 4 years length of stay in prison. Our criminal justice system seems to be quite devistating and extremely disorganized when it comes to properly giving the alleged inmates their Constitutational right to a speedy trial. The United

There were fifty-two executions in the United States in 2009 and forty-six in 2010, with over 3,000 people waiting on death row for their sentences to be carried out. In most cases these never will be

An appeal in the criminal law system is a defendant’s way of challenging the court’s decision. In this paper I will discuss what an appeal is, how it factors into the overall procedures and process of the criminal system. How the appeals process may be improved. Steps in the appeals process and an example case of an appeal. And why the example case appeal did or did not succeed.

The losing party in a judgment by a federal district court, in general has a right to appeal the judgment to the next highest court, which is usually the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. In a federal criminal case, the government may not appeal a not guilty verdict, though they may appeal the sentence imposed on a criminal convict. In a federal criminal case, the defendant may appeal their conviction and the sentence.

Court cases are heard on the first Monday of October all the way to late June or early July unless otherwise decided by the court. In any court system, state or federal, certain requirements must be met before a case can be brought before a court. (Schmidt, Shelley, Bardes 274) Two of which are jurisdiction; the authority of the court to hear and decide a case, and standing to sue; an actual reason to bring to court. Surprisingly the Supreme Court cases have no right of appeal. The court tends to choose which cases it will decide and there never really is a full explanation on why one was chosen over another.

Thirty-two years and 1,100 executions later, Justice Stevens reversed course and said, “The death penalty is hopelessly flawed and unconstitutional, it is shot with racism, skewed toward conviction, infected with politics, and tinged with hysteria (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). It has been proven time and time again that the death penalty has many defects, therefore every defendant given a death sentence conviction should be afforded every appeal process.

1. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it now takes on average about 178 months (about 15 years) for an execution occurs.

Fewer and fewer American judges are turning towards the punishment of death in court cases. Many moral and ethical standards require justices to think extensively about their judgments before acting on them. The thought of sending a person to die is a very gruesome one to face, no matter how strong someone may be. As Michael Endres stated, "The execution of an offender is the most certain way to incapacitate him...the death penalty is not, of course, the only way to achieve this end" (Endres 19). Equally effective methods of punishment are more often used now. Some prisoners actually favor dying rather than being forced into confinement for life.

Firstly, a lot of appeals and procedures are needed, which take up a lot of time and space from the court room. These cause the prisoner to wait years for the end result. It is common for prisoners to be on death row for more than a decade, on average, and a lot have even exceeded 20 or 30 years. Some inmates have even died of natural causes due to the long waiting times. According to the Criminal Justice Project of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, there are currently 2 843 death row inmates as of spring 2017, and 1 in 3 of these prisoners are older than 50. Following the “Roster of the Executed” chart, in spring of 2017, 6 inmates have been executed, these being Christopher Wilkins, Ricky Gray, Terry Edwards, Mark Christeson, Rolando Ruiz and James Bigby. The shortest waiting time amongst these six was 9 years with Wilkins’ case who was on death row since 2008 and was executed January 11th 2017. The longest waiting time was James Bigby, who waited 30 years until his execution the 14th of March 2017. The average years between