Case question?

Question

I need legal professionals to answer this question. Have you heard of the Harmelin v. Michigan and Atkins v. Virginia case. If you have please emil me.

Answer 1

One of my law professors and his students briefed and argued Atkins v. Virginia that forbids the execution of the mentally retarded. From a lawyer's point of view, an interesting tidbit about this case is that Professor Jim Ellis had never appeared in any courtroom before. His first Court appearance was at the U.S. Supreme Court. Plus, it's been almost 30 years since I went to law school and he was a professor then. Before I email you, I'd like to know what you're interested in about these cases--and how fast do you need to know? I can find local reports on this case in the achives of my newspaper, also. Hamelin v. Michigan concerned the question of whether possession of 60 grams of cocaine, resulting in a life sentence, was cruel and unusual punishment. Fairly poor opinion from the Supremes--they decided it was cruel, but not unusual. They did a good analysis on Atkins and a poor analysis on Harmelin.

Answer 2

This a good site for researching

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=00-8452

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/colb/20020522.html