Eighth Amendment

The Eighth Amendment’s Time to Shine: Previewing Florida’s Imminent Constitutional Crisis in Capital Punishment

Melanie Kalmanson

Abstract In April 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis enacted legislation that lowers the jury vote necessary to impose a sentence of death in the state to 8–4. The new statute removes the procedural safeguards that were implemented after the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2016 that Florida’s capital sentencing scheme violated defendants’ right to jury […]

Kevin Barry , From Wolves, Lambs (Part I): The Eighth Amendment Case for Gradual Abolition of the Death Penalty

This spring, the Connecticut Supreme Court will take up a novel question, unprecedented in modern death penalty jurisprudence: Can a state gradually abolish its death penalty? Restated, can it leave the sentences of those currently on death row in place but abolish the death penalty going forward? This Article argues that it can. On simple […]