Argument: Overburdened courts cut-corners on death penalty cases

Support

Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, dissenting in the decision to allow Thomas Thompson to be executed in California; Reinhardt, S.: “The Supreme Court, The Death Penalty, and the Harris Case” (1992) – “We are presently barely able to handle our current caseload properly …. We are always looking for new fast-track procedures — which means less careful, less thorough review of cases on the merits. … [Soon] not only will we not be able to handle those death penalty cases properly, but we will not, in all likelihood, be able to handle any of our cases in a manner that is consistent with the standards that have traditionally marked the federal courts.”[1]