Last updated on:
3/6/2019 |
Author: ProCon.org
Kent Scheidegger, JD Biography
- Title:
- Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
- Position:
- Pro to the question "Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed?"
- Reasoning:
-
“The death penalty serves three functions. First, for some crimes any lesser punishment is inadequate as a matter of basic justice…
Second, an executed death sentence absolutely guarantees the killer will never kill again. A life sentence does not. There are many cases of people killed by murderers who were paroled, escaped, killed within prison, or who arranged murders from within the prison…
Third, I believe that an effective, enforced death penalty deters some murders.”
“Spring 2001: Does Capital Punishment Have a Future?,” National Online Youth Summit of the American Bar Association (accessed Aug. 7, 2008)
- Involvement and Affiliations:
-
- Executive Committee member, Criminal Law and Procedure Practice Group, Federalist Society, 1996-present
- Legal Director, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Dec. 1986-present
- Chairman, Federalist Society Criminal Law Practice Group, 2003-2005
- General Counsel, California Cooler, Inc., 1984-1986
- Civil Law Practice, Northern California, 1982-1984
- Nuclear Research Officer, United States Air Force, 1976-1982
- Education:
-
- JD, McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, 1982
- BS, Physics, New Mexico State University, 1976
- Other:
-
Wrote an amicus curiae brief in the following US Supreme Court cases:
- Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989)
- McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467 (1991)
- Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991)
- Tuilaepa v. California, 512 U.S. 967 (1994)
- Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995)
- Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651 (1996)
- Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000)
- Connecticut Dept. of Public Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1 (2003)
- Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35 (2008)
- Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388 (2011)
- Quoted in: