NCJ Number
131667
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 81 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1991) Pages: 727-760
Date Published
1991
Length
34 pages
Annotation
Most appellate court decisions employ a deductive, rule-based methodology. When the Supreme Court decides cases based on inference, including opinions related to death penalty jurisprudence, rulings are arrived at in an awkward fashion and result in instability.
Abstract
The author uses the case of Walton v. Arizona to illustrate how the Court's decisions are inconsistent regarding the role of discretion in sentencing murderers to death. The Justices' opinions try to treat a dynamic question with the standard deductive tools of appellate decisionmaking. As a result, the majority opinions appear unpersuasive and the dissenters' illogical. The author maintains that the Supreme Court is caught in a conflict between rules and judgment and uses three examples to make his case: the "mere sympathy" instruction; obscenity cases; and the reliability of out of court statements. Alternative approaches to decisionmaking that may work when deduction does not are deference, analogy, and decision by reference to reliability rather than accuracy. 98 notes