Professor Deborah Denno was mentioned in a Newsweek article examining the use of the firing squad in South Carolina’s executions, which has recently come under scrutiny due to its apparent brutality.
One of the attorneys representing Richard Moore, who has been sentenced to death in South Carolina, has called the state’s use of a firing squad “brutal” as the state faces questions over its death penalty methods after the state Supreme Court halted the scheduled execution of Moore and another man this month.
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Speaking to Newsweek, [Samuel F. Leibowitz Professor of Trial Techniques and director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project John Blume, who is serving as one of Moore’s attorneys] said he considers the firing squad to be a “brutal” method of execution and a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
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Some advocate for the firing squad, and [Asst. Prof. at the USC School of Law Madalyn K. Wasilczuk] highlighted Deborah Denno, Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law and founding director of the Neuroscience and Law Center at Fordham University, who she said “argues that it sort of forces the public to face what we’re doing instead of, in her words, allowing the ‘medical veneer of soothing sleep.’