Capital Punishment
Monday, April 8, 2013 at 7:00PM
Ethical Society of Philadelphia
1906 Rittenhouse Square
Free and open to the public!
The Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia
presents another in its Constitution at
Work Series examining important issues in relation to the Constitution,
legal rulings, and ethics.
Leader of the Ethical Humanist Society of
Philadelphia, Hugh Taft-Morales,
will discuss constitutional and ethical issues about the death penalty with
University of Pennsylvania Law Professor
Kim Roosevelt.
The two will
address many issues including the purpose of the criminal justice system,
constitutional challenges to capital punishment based on the 5th, 8th
and 14th amendments, proportionality, and problems that arise in
application of the death penalty.
After questions
and comments from the floor, there will be time for conversation over
refreshments.
Prof. Roosevelt’s areas of expertise are
constitutional law, conflicts of law, and federal jurisdiction. His latest book, Conflict
of Laws (Foundation Press 2010) offers an accessible analytical overview of
conflicts. His prior book, The Myth of Judicial Activism: Making Sense of
Supreme Court Decisions (Yale, 2006) sets out standards by which citizens
can determine whether the Supreme Court is abusing its authority. He has also
published in the Virginia, Michigan and Columbia law reviews, among others, and
his articles have been cited twice by the Supreme Court and numerous times by
state and lower federal courts. He represents a detainee in the detention
center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He also is the author of a novel, In the
Shadow of the Law (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005).
