Latest Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law issue heading to press

As I noted in my Thanksgiving post, I am thankful that the tireless faculty and student staff have  finalized the final edits for the Fall 2004 issue of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law and we are now sending the issue to press.  This is the first issue of our second volume, and I do not think I am being immodest by saying the latest issue maintains the high-quality OSJCL tradition (the credit for which should go principally to my colleague and co-editor Joshua Dressler).

As detailed in the OSJCL's cover page, which you can download below, the Fall 2004 issue includes a wonderful tribute to criminal law legend Yale Kamisar, which was organized by my colleague Marc Spindelman.  The issue's symposium is focused on Capital Juries, and here's my (Blakely influenced) introduction to the symposium:

Few institutions in the criminal justice system are more revered, or perhaps less understood, than juries.  And though juries have a central place in our conception of the criminal justice system, the reality of plea bargaining means that juries in fact have a relatively minor role in the actual administration of criminal justice in most cases.   In the operation of the death penalty, however, juries are in fact central decision-makers.  Most capital convictions are the result of jury trials, and juries also have, literally, a life-or-death role during the sentencing phase of death penalty cases. 

Though there is significant academic literature examining the death penalty, the scholarly spotlight is not often focused directly on the meaning and impact of juries in the operation of capital sentencing systems.  As evidenced by the articles that follow, the story of capital juries is rich and dynamic: our authors examine, from a range of perspectives, various legal, policy and practical issues which surround the selection and decision-making of capital juries.  Especially at a time when the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Blakely v. Washington is leading to a broad reconsideration of the role of juries in the criminal justice system, we expect that even readers who do not regularly work in or study capital sentencing systems will be able to draw many important insights from this symposium.

We expect to have all the articles from the issue available for full on-line access soon (perhaps even before the end of this coming week).  In the meantime, you can enjoy the cover provided here, Download osjcl_cover_v2n1.pdf, and also browse our prior and future forthcoming issues here.