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88 Cornell L. Rev. 555 (2002-2003)
Speeding in Reverse: An Anecdotal View of Why Victim Impact Testimony Should Not Be Driving Capital Prosecutions

handle is hein.journals/clqv88 and id is 569 raw text is: SPEEDING IN REVERSE: AN ANECDOTAL VIEW OF WHY VICTIM IMPACT TESTIMONY SHOULD NOT BE DRIVING CAPITAL PROSECUTIONS Sheri Lynn Johnsont INTRODUCTION It seems appropriate to end this conference with the story of how it began-with the story of Shanan Ardis. The State of South Carolina prosecuted Shanan for the capital murder of his father. John Blume, Bill Nettles, and I represented him, and Dr. Seymour Halleck, who ultimately testified very powerfully in Shanan's defense, diagnosed him. It was during Shanan's capital sentencing proceeding that Dr. Halleck and I started talking about the impact prosecuting Shanan would have on the surviving family members. Dr. Halleck mentioned that, as a psychiatrist, he thought the death penalty was generally harmful to victims' family members. He explained that while its harmfulness was more immediately apparent in cases involving in- trafamilial homicides, such as Shanan's murder of his father, the death penalty also tended to damage family members in stranger- homicide cases because of its effects on the grieving process. He then casually mentioned that a professional organization to which he once belonged had contemplated publicly opposing the death penalty for those very effects on victims' family members. With Dr. Halleck's comments, the idea for this symposium was born, for it seemed to me that the common wisdom-that the death penalty was for the benefit of surviving victims-was wholly at odds with psychiatric insight. The Ardis case is not an extraordinary one, but neither is it typi- cal. ' The victim-family dynamics in the Ardis case are idiosyncratic, or at least peculiar to intrafamilial homicide cases. Nonetheless, the story has several broad and powerful lessons related to victim impact testimony. It has shaped many of my own views; so, I will tell the story, explain those broad lessons, and let you be the judge. t Professor of Law, Cornell Law School. I There is no reported decision in this case.

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