Drake University Law School

Publications:

1.  Death Penalty-Related:

Books:

  • Death Penalty Cases, 3rd Ed. (2010), co-author with Barry Latzer. (With Teachers’ Manual created solely by McCord).

Articles:

  • Lethal Rejection: An Empirical Analysis of the Astonishing Plunge in Death Sentences in the United States from Their Post-Furman Peak, 81 Albany L. Rev. 1 (2017-2018) (co-author with Talia Roitberg Harmon).
  • The Proposed Capital Penalty Phase Rules of Evidence, 36 Cardozo L. Rev. 417 (2014) (co-author with Hon. Mark W. Bennett).
  • “Sociology, I’d Like You to Meet the Death Penalty,” Book Review of David Garland’s Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, 32 Criminal Justice Ethics 51 (2013).
  • Lethal Connection: The “War on Drugs” and Death Sentencing, 15 J. Race, Gender & Just. 1 (2012) (invited symposium paper).
  • What’s Messing with Texas Death Sentences? 43 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 601 (2010).
  • Should Commission of a Contemporaneous Arson, Burglary, Kidnapping, Rape, or Robbery Be Sufficient to Make a Murderer Eligible for a Death Sentence?—An Empirical and Normative Analysis, 49 Santa Clara L. Rev. 1-50 (2008).
  • “Capital Punishment: History and Politics” entry in the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties, Paul Finkelman, Ed., (2006), at 238-242.
  • Editor of Judicature magazine symposium issue “The Effects of Capital Punishment on the Administration of Justice (March/April 2006); wrote the Introduction and the Afterword.
  • Lightning Still Strikes: Evidence from the Popular Press that Death Sentencing Continues to Be Unconstitutionally Arbitrary More than Three Decades after Furman, 71 Brooklyn L. Rev. 797-927 (2005).
  • Switching Juries in Mid-Stream: The Perplexities of Penalty Phase-Only Retrials (solicited by this peer-reviewed journal) 2 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 215-259 (2004).
  • A Year in the Life of Death: Murders and Capital Sentences in South Carolina, 1998, 53 S. C. L. Rev. 249-360 (2002)
  • An Open Letter to Governor George Ryan Concerning How To Fix the Death Penalty System, 32 Loy. U. Chi. L. J. 451-469 (2001).
  • State Death Sentencing For Felony Murder Accomplices Under the Enmund and Tison Standards, 32 Ariz. St. L. J. 843-896 (2000).
  • Is Death “Different” for Harmless Error Analysis?  Should It Be?: An Analysis of United States and Louisiana Supreme Court Case Law, 59 La. L. Rev.1105-1167(1999).
  • Imagining a Retributivist Alternative to Capital Punishment.  50 Fla. L. Rev. 1-143 (1998).
  • Judging the Effectiveness of the Supreme Court’s Death Penalty Jurisprudence According to the Court’s Own Goals:  Mild Success or Major Failure? 24 Fla. St. L. Rev. 545-603 (1997).

2.  Other Criminal Law-Related:

  • The “Trial”/”Structural” Error Dichotomy: Erroneous, and Not Harmless, 45 U. Kan. L. Rev. 1401-1461 (1997).
  • Visions of Habeas, 1994 B. Y. U. L. Rev. 735-840.
  • Supplement to Chapter 44, (Habeas Corpus) Massachusetts Criminal Defenses (1994) (with Eric D. Blumenson).
  • Moral Reasoning and the Criminal Law:  The Example of Self Defense.  30 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 97-160 (1992) (with Sandra K. Lyons).
  • The English and American History of Voluntary Intoxication to Negate Mens Rea, 11 J. Legal Hist. 372-395 (1990).
  • Chapter 3 (The Prosecution and Defense of Forcible Sex Crimes) in The Prosecution and Defense of Sex Crimes (1989) (182 pages).
  • Bargaining with Bad Guys:  Is the Government Bound to Fulfill Promises Made to Secure the Release of Hostages?  11 U. Ark. Little Rock L.J. 435-456 (1988-89).

3.  Evidence-Related:

  • “But Perry Mason Made It Look So Easy!”: The Admissibility of Evidence Offered by a Criminal Defendant To Suggest that Someone Else Is Guilty, 63 Tenn. L. Rev. 917-986 (1996).
  • A Primer for the Non-Mathematically Inclined on Probabilistic Evidence in Criminal Cases:  People v. Collins and Beyond, 47 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 741-817 (1990).
  • Syndromes, Profiles, and Other Mental Exotica:  A New Approach to the Admissibility of Nontraditional Psychological Evidence in Criminal Cases, 66 Or. L. Rev. 19-108 (1987).
  • Expert Psychological Testimony About Child Complainants in Sexual Abuse Prosecutions:  A Foray into the Admissibility of Novel Psychological Evidence, 77 J. Crim. L. and Criminology 1-68 (1986).
  • The Admissibility of Expert Testimony Regarding Rape Trauma Syndrome in Rape Prosecutions, 26 B.C.L. Rev. 1143-1213 (1985).