McLeod, Marah Stith, Does the Death Penalty Require Death Row? The Harm of Legislative Silence (March 14, 2015). Ohio State Law Journal, Forthcoming. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2589716

“This Article exposes two flawed assumptions about death row in leading scholarship and judicial opinions. The first flawed assumption is that death row is an inevitable consequence of a death sentence. The second flawed assumption is that prison administrators should be entrusted with the decision whether to retain death row.  The Article will show that death row cannot be justified on prison security grounds, but, contrary to the claims of some scholars, it may be justified for other punishment purposes. Using extensive state-by-state research, the Article shows that in most jurisdictions, harsh death row conditions result not from statutory commands, but from discretionary administrative policies. This Article argues that legislatures, not prison administrators, should decide whether death row is a necessary aspect of capital punishment, for two reasons. Prison administrators may not be able to assess objectively whether death row serves legitimate purposes, because of their roles in the execution process. More importantly, legislatures and not prison administrators have the duty to decide whether punishment is just.  If death row is to be tethered by law to a death sentence, then this legal tether should be drawn by statute, after public deliberation and debate, and not by administrative fiat. If legislatures conclude that the death penalty does not require death row, then they must forbid prison administrators from so augmenting the sentence for a capital crime.”