AUDIO

The imposition of the punishment of execution for certain heinous crimes has been a matter of intense controversy in the United States and especially in its legal system. Although the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty for over thirty years, battles over its application in particular cases and circumstances or to particular groups of persons has roiled our jurisprudence and strained our court systems over the same time. The phrase “death is different” has come to embody arguments over ways in which our law should or should not be altered or distorted in dealing with death penalty cases. Judge Danny J. Boggs will consider the state of U.S. jurisprudence on the death penalty, its application by the courts, and the extent to which the death penalty is--or should be--approached by courts in a way different from any other area of law.

Judge Danny J. Boggs is the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was appointed to the bench in 1986 and became chief judge in 2003. He has led three missions under the auspices of the United States Department of State, teaching American jurisprudence in Moscow in 1991 and 1993. By appointment of the Chief Justice of the United States, Judge Boggs served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 1992 to 1994. From 1994 to 2000, he served on the Judicial Conference Committee on Automation. He chaired the Appellate Judges Conference of the American Bar Association in 2001–2002. In 2008, he was appointed by the Chief Justice to the executive committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Judge Boggs’s previous federal service includes periods as deputy secretary of energy (1983–86); assistant director of the White House Office of Policy Development (1981–83); and experience at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Federal Power Commission, and the Office of the Solicitor General. Judge Boggs has also served in the Kentucky state government and taught at the University of Chicago Law School.