The Proposed Capital Penalty Phase Rules of Evidence

Authors

David McCord, Drake University Law School
Mark W. Bennett, Northern District of Iowa

Abstract

No person or organization has ever proposed model rules of evidence for the unique penalty phase of a death penalty trial. Now a law professor skilled in the scholarship of both death penalty jurisprudence and evidence, and a federal judge with extensive federal death penalty experience, do just that. This work transcends the hodge-podge of evidentiary approaches taken by the various state jurisdictions and federal law. The result is the Proposed CAPITAL PENALTY PHASE RULES OF EVIDENCE - clear and uniform rules to govern the wide-ranging evidentiary issues that arise in the penalty phase of capital trials. Death penalty trials, long criticized for the arbitrariness of their results, will greatly benefit from these Rules.

Disciplines

Law

Recommended Citation

David McCord & Mark W. Bennett, The Proposed Capital Penalty Phase Rules of Evidence, 36 Cardozo L. Rev. 417 (2014).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/clr/vol36/iss2/7