Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2006

Publication Title

Federal Sentencing Reporter

Publication Title (Abbreviation)

Fed. Sent. Rep.

Volume

19

Issue

1

First Page

5

Last Page

12

Abstract

Fifteen years ago, in Payne v. Tennessee, the Supreme Court lifted its prohibition on the admission of victim impact evidence (VIE) in the penalty phase of capital trials. According to the Court, admitting evidence on the personal traits of individual murder victims and the toll associated with their killings at once properly allowed the government to show the “uniqueness” of victims, thus counterbalancing defendants’ largely unfettered right to adduce mitigation evidence, and permitted the sentencing authority to under-stand the “specific harm” caused by the murder. In the wake of Payne, Congress authorized use of VIE as a nonstatutory aggravating factor, and VIE has become a staple in federal death penalty trials, including those of Timothy McVeigh and Zacarias Moussaoui. Despite this prominence, to date no study has been undertaken of VIE in federal capital trials in particular. In this article, I do so, analyzing all federal decisions in the Westlaw database containing victim impact–related claims rendered since Payne, as well as the statutory and case law concerning admission of VIE.

Rights

© 2006 Wayne A. Logan

Comments

First published in Federal Sentencing Reporter.

Faculty Biography

http://law.fsu.edu/our-faculty/profiles/wlogan

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