Professor Michael Mannheimer is taking his analysis of a clause of the U.S. Constitution to the highest level: the Supreme Court of the United States.
- His analysis: Professor Mannheimer has long argued in law journals and briefs in lower courts that imposing a death penalty for a federal crime committed in a state that does not allow a death penalty for state crimes violates the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause.
- In the Supreme Court: Professor Mannheimer wrote and filed an amicus curiae brief – an analysis of an issue in a case by a person or group not involved in it – in a federal death penalty case pending before the court from a state without its own death penalty.
- An excerpt: “Imposition of the federal death penalty for a crime committed wholly within a non-death-penalty State has been exceedingly rare, and prior to 2002, it was virtually unheard of. This longstanding practice accords with the original understanding of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, which forbade the federal government from inflicting punishments more severe than the laws of each respective State.”
