A Judge's Crusade Against the Death Penalty
The New York Times has profiled Judge Jed Rakoff in his quest against the death penalty. Judge Rakoff's pursuit began when he presided over his district's first death penalty case in years, a trial against two drug dealers. From his chambers in the southern district of New York, the judge and his clerks scoured the internet for instances where the death penalty was imposed despite serious doubts about the guilt of the condemned. After documenting more than 30 such cases, the judge ruled that the death penalty violated the Constitution's Due Process Clause by preventing such prisoners from pursuing claims of innocence.
The judge remains opposed to capital punishment despite having suffered through the kind of ordeal that proponents of the death penalty often charge critics as insensitive to, the the grisly murder of his older brother. The Second Circuit ultimately overruled Juge Rakoff. A jury chose to sentence the drug dealers to life in prison.