William Barr Uses Victims and Their Families to Prop Up America’s Failing Death Penalty System

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—argues that Attorney General William Barr erroneously characterizes the families of victims of violent crimes as a homogeneous group unified in their support of the death penalty. Sarat points out that, in fact, some families of victims oppose the application of the death penalty (for a variety of reasons), so by trying to justify the reinstatement of the federal death penalty as bringing closure to victims and their families, Barr and his political allies are simply using these victims and their families to support his political ends.

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Commonwealth v. Weidman

Docket: SJC-12612

Opinion Date: September 10, 2020

Judge: Barbara A. Lenk

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Defendant's conviction for murder in the first degree on theories of deliberate premeditation and felony murder, holding that the trial court did not err in denying Defendant's motion to suppress or in introducing at trial Defendant's statements made to investigators. On appeal, Defendant argued that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress all the statements he made to investigators while he was questioned at a police station and that the admission of those statements at trial was prejudicial. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed and declined to exercise its authority under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, 33E to reduce the verdict or to order a new trial, holding (1) the motion judge did not err in denying Defendant's motion to suppress; (2) the trial court did not err in admitting Defendant's statements at trial; and (3) no other relief was appropriate.