A Good Murder

People are profoundly interested in crimes because the law and legal punishments are supposed to address the fundamental human craving for justice. Courts are embedded in this system of law because we do not rust individuals alone or groups to judge fairly. This essay will describe a pattern which emerged when researchers examined all homicide cases in the state of New Jersey during the years immediately after the reimposition of capital punishment in 1982. Particularly relevant is the pattern of capital punishment for urban and suburban murders, and how those cases were regarded by law enforcement, the media, and the public

The Quality of Justice in Capital Cases: Illinois as a Case Study

Bienen uses Illinois as a case study of injustice in capital cases. The quality of justice in the trial and appeal of capital cases in Illinois is of a very low standard

A Good Murder

People are profoundly interested in crimes because the law and legal punishments are supposed to address the fundamental human craving for justice. Courts are embedded in this system of law because we do not rust individuals alone or groups to judge fairly. This essay will describe a pattern which emerged when researchers examined all homicide cases in the state of New Jersey during the years immediately after the reimposition of capital punishment in 1982. Particularly relevant is the pattern of capital punishment for urban and suburban murders, and how those cases were regarded by law enforcement, the media, and the public

He Was a Big Boy, Still Is

Leigh Bienen, of Princeton, New Jersey, is a criminal defense attorney whose areas of expertise include capital punishment, sex crimes, and rape reform legislation. Her short fiction has been published in Ontario Review (reprinted in the O. Henry Awards anthology), The Mississippi Review, Panache, and elsewhere

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN ILLINOIS IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE RYAN COMMUTATIONS: REFORMS, ECONOMIC REALITIES, AND A NEW SALIENCY FOR ISSUES OF COST

In 2000 when Governor George Ryan unilaterally imposed a statewide moratorium on executions in Illinois, in response to accumulating evidence of more than a dozen wrongfully convicted persons on death row in Illinois. In 1999 the Illinois legislature created the Capital Litigation Trust Fund, to allow private, appointed defense counsel, state\u27s attorneys , and public defenders to be paid directly for the expenses of a capital trial from state appropriated funds, upon the approval of the trial court judge. Publishing new data on capital prosecutions in Illinois since 2000, this article documents evidence of state money spent at the county level on more than 500 capital prosecutions , the largest proportion from Cook County, which resulted in 17 death sentences imposed. More than 100 million dollars of state money has been spent out of the Capital Litigation Trust Fund alone by county state\u27s attorneys, appointed private counsel, and by public defenders. The availability of state funds changed the dynamics and economic and bureaucratic incentives for capital prosecution. In addition, over 64 million dollars has been spent by the state, the city of Chicago, and the counties in judgments involving wrongful convictions. This article presents data on capital prosecutions and murders across the state, and publishes for the first time the State\u27s Attorney\u27s own adopted guidelines for the selection of cases for capital prosecution. When patterns of capital prosecution are examined across the state as a whole, it becomes clear that the counties most likely to spend the state\u27s money on prosecuting first degree murder cases capitally are not those jurisdictions with the largest number of first degree murders. Nor is there a correspondence between the number of county capital prosecutions, the number of death sentences imposed, the number of murders or the murder rate in that county, and the amount of money spent by the county from the Capital Litigation Trust Fund. County by county disparities in capital case prosecutions and in expenditures of state money are startling. The absence of centralized review and the presence of many potential areas of conflicts of interest should submit the existing system to close scrutiny at this time of budgetary pressure