Washington and Lee University School of Law
The Journal began in 1988 as a staple-bound, photocopied case digest containing summaries of capital cases from the Virginia and federal courts. In that pre-Internet era, that kind of publication was the most effective way for the Washington & Lee law students who staffed the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse to disseminate news and legal research to Virginia capital defense attorneys. In 1998, after publishing the Digest for ten years, the VC3 upgraded it to the Capital Defense Journal, a full-fledged law review devoted to the law and practice of death penalty defense.
We’re proud of the writing that has appeared in the Digest and the Journal over the past seventeen years, and we hope that our readers have found it useful. But it has become obvious that in this age of online legal research and resources, a traditional printed law journal is simply not an effective way to disseminate legal news and scholarship to where it’s needed most.
Accordingly, we have converted to a web-only format, recommitting the money spent publishing the Journal each year towards VC3.org. We will continue to make available Capital Defense Journal on VC3.org and will redirect the time spent cite-checking and page-proofing to keeping the content of VC3’s materials and articles updated and relevant.
