Ohio Northern University: DigitalCommons@ONU

Gerber, Scott D.

Ohio Northern University Law Review 
Volume 38 Issue 2 Article 1 
Introduction to the Tribute to Victor L. Streib:An Ideal Role Model 
Scott D. Gerber 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review 
 Part of the Law Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Gerber, Scott D. () "Introduction to the Tribute to Victor L. Streib:An Ideal Role Model," Ohio Northern 
University Law Review: Vol. 38: Iss. 2, Article 1. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/1 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the ONU Journals and Publications at 
DigitalCommons@ONU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ohio Northern University Law Review by an 
authorized editor of DigitalCommons@ONU. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@onu.edu. 
407 
Ohio Northern University 
Law Review 
 
Tribute Articles 
 
 
Introduction to the Tribute to Victor L. Streib:  
An Ideal Role Model 
SCOTT D. GERBER
*
 
I am delighted to be writing the Introduction to this wonderful Tribute 
in the Ohio Northern University Law Review honoring my recently-retired 
colleague Victor L. Streib.  I arrived at Ohio Northern University in the fall 
of 2001 and quickly learned that Vic was the ideal role model for what it 
means to excel in all phases of the law professoriate: teaching, research, and 
service.  Vic also was a wonderful colleague and family man, and our law 
college—our village of Ada—is not the same without him.
1
 
A DEDICATED TEACHER  
Vic received his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from 
Auburn University and his Juris Doctorate from Indiana University at 
Bloomington.
2
  He began his teaching career in the Department of Forensic 
Studies (now Criminal Justice) at Indiana University.  He moved to New 
England School of Law in Boston in 1978 and to Cleveland-Marshall 
School of Law at Cleveland State University in 1980, where he also served 
a term as Associate Dean.  Vic arrived at Ohio Northern University Pettit 
  
 *  Professor of Law, Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law; Senior Research Schol-
ar in Law and Politics, Social Philosophy and Policy Center.  I thank Margot Gerber, Stanford Gerber, 
Kevin Hawley, Margaret McDonald, Ron Mollick, and Lynn Sametz for comments on a draft.  I also 
thank the Ohio Northern University Law Review for asking me to write this Introduction. 
 1. I am not stealing from Hillary Clinton here.  See HILLARY R. CLINTON, IT TAKES A VILLAGE: 
AND OTHER LESSONS CHILDREN TEACH US 19 (1996).  Ada, Ohio really is a village rather than a town 
or a city.   
 2. Vic’s biography is drawn from his ONU faculty webpage.  See Victor Streib, Faculty Profile, 
OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY PETTIT COLLEGE OF LAW, http://www.law.onu.edu/faculty_staff/faculty_ 
profiles/victorstreib.html (last visited Jan. 5, 2012). 
1
Gerber: Introduction to the Tribute to Victor L. Streib:An Ideal Role Mod
Published by DigitalCommons@ONU,
408 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38 
College of Law (“ONU”) in 1996 to serve as Dean and Professor of Law.  
After a successful deanship, Vic remained the most significant member of 
our law faculty until his retirement in December of 2010.
3
 
Vic taught a variety of courses during his distinguished career, 
including Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Death Penalty, Juvenile 
Homicide, Children and the Law, Legal Profession, and Women and 
Criminal Justice.  His Capital Punishment Seminar was almost certainly the 
most popular course at ONU, and students would adjust their schedules well 
in advance to make sure they had a chance to take it.  Who could blame 
them?  As this Tribute demonstrates, Vic is probably the leading authority 
in the United States on the subject.  But Vic excelled in all the courses he 
taught.  Indeed, one of the urban legends at ONU is how Vic taught Legal 
Profession one particular semester while holding one of his student’s infants 
in his arms so her mother could take notes.  A sweeter picture is difficult to 
imagine: the renowned Professor Victor L. Streib discussing the intricacies 
of legal ethics while a cherubic baby pulls quizzically at his beard.  And Vic 
cared about all of his students, not simply the ones with adorable children.  
His door was always open and nary a day would pass without Vic talking to 
students—mentoring them—in his office, in the corridor, at the gym . . . 
name it and Vic was inspiring students there.  As celebrated of a scholar as 
Vic undeniably is, my sense is that Vic always put his students first. 
AN INFLUENTIAL SCHOLAR 
Or, better still, a life saving scholar.  Vic is, of course, most famous for 
helping to convince the Supreme Court of the United States in 2005 that it is 
unconstitutional to execute juveniles.
4
  That in itself makes Vic one of the 
all time greats of American legal education.
5
  Vic literally dedicated his 
professional life to saving the lives of juvenile offenders, and he succeeded.  
In fact, his comprehensive empirical evidence was so impressive that the 
majority in Roper v. Simmons
6
 and both dissents cited it multiple times!
7
 
  
 3. Vic visited at a number of institutions during his long career, including Duke, Elon, Indiana, 
Michigan State, Ohio State, and San Diego. 
 4. See Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005).  The Court overturned its earlier decision in 
Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989), which had permitted the death penalty for offenders above or 
at the age of sixteen. 
 5. Vic laid the groundwork for Roper with his work in Thompson v. Oklahoma, a decision in 
which he and Harry F. Tepker persuaded the Court to forbid the execution of individuals under the age 
of sixteen at the time of the crime.  See Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1987).  Professor Tepker 
contributes a marvelous essay about that case to this Tribute.  See Harry F. Tepker, Thompson v. Okla-
homa and the Judicial Search for Constitutional Tradition:  In Celebration of Victor Streib. 
 6. See Roper, 543 U.S. at 564-65. 
 7. Id. at 594-95 (O’Connor, J., dissenting); id. at 614-15 (Scalia, J., dissenting). 
2
Ohio Northern University Law Review, Vol. 38 [], Iss. 2, Art. 1
https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/1
2012] A TRIBUTE TO VICTOR L. STREIB 409 
In light of the fact that I write in the areas of American legal history and 
constitutional theory,
8
 I will leave it to the other distinguished contributors 
to this Tribute to speak to the substance of Vic’s scholarship.  Deborah W. 
Denno, Richard C. Dieter, Katherine Hunt Federle, Margery B. Koosed, 
Paul Marcus, Harold Pepinsky, Michael L. Radelet, Lauren K. Robel, Carl 
Monk, Lorraine Schmall, and Harry F. Tepker know far more about 
criminal law than I do.  However, I feel compelled to mention how prolific 
Vic has been.  When I requested a copy of Vic’s publications list prior to 
commencing this Introduction, I received a twenty-eight page single-spaced 
Word attachment in response.  I knew Vic had published a lot, but I never 
imagined it was possible to publish that much.  At my count, Vic has 
authored more than three hundred books, chapters, articles, and papers 
during his illustrious academic career.  No wonder Dr. Anne Lippert, at the 
time ONU’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, referred to Vic as the 
most prolific scholar in the history of our university.  Vic continues to write 
during his retirement, as his forthcoming book about preteen murderers 
illustrates.
9
   
More importantly, as the other contributors to this Tribute make clear, 
Vic’s scholarship is good, not simply plentiful.  Not only did Vic’s 
voluminous writings about the death penalty lead West to commission him 
to write a nutshell on the subject—he is currently hard at work on the 4th 
edition
10
—but he has been cited twenty-eight times by the Supreme Court of 
the United States, which is twenty-eight times more than most law 
professors can claim.  Vic also has been interviewed about his work by, 
among other media outlets, the New York Times, London Times, Wall Street 
Journal, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, ABA 
Journal, U.S. News, ABC (This Week, News), BBC (News), CBC (News), 
CBS (60 Minutes, News), CNN (Larry King Live, News), NBC (Today 
Show, News), and NPR (All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation).  Again, 
few law professors can say that.  Vic’s scholarship likewise has influenced 
many colleagues in the law professoriate itself.  The countless law review 
citations to his publications are a testament to this fact, as is my less 
scientific measure of being asked about Vic at seemingly every talk I have 
given at law schools across the country . . . even though my talks have 
  
 8. See, e.g., SCOTT DOUGLAS GERBER, A DISTINCT JUDICIAL POWER:  THE ORIGINS OF AN 
INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY, 1606-1787 (2011). 
 9. See VICTOR L. STREIB, LITTLE KIDS WHO KILL:  LAW AND JUSTICE FOR PRETEEN 
MURDERERS (forthcoming 2012). 
 10. See VICTOR L. STREIB, DEATH PENALTY IN A NUTSHELL (2003) (2d ed. 2005) (3d ed. 2008) 
(4th ed. forthcoming). 
3
Gerber: Introduction to the Tribute to Victor L. Streib:An Ideal Role Mod
Published by DigitalCommons@ONU,
410 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38 
absolutely nothing to do with criminal law or the death penalty.
11
  
Moreover, the student editors in charge of this Tribute issue honoring Vic 
proudly informed me recently that other scholars had contacted the Law 
Review asking if they could submit a piece about Vic. 
A TIRELESS SERVANT TO THE LEGAL ACADEMY . . . AND TO THE LAW 
Many law professors view service as, at best, a necessary evil.  “It is 
your turn to chair the curriculum committee,” we have all heard it said.  Or, 
“Do you have time to serve on an ABA site inspection team this year?  You 
know, as a personal favor.”  Vic was never like that.  He embraced 
professional service with the same zeal he exhibited as a teacher and a 
scholar.  For example, for the Association of American Law Schools Vic 
presented papers at annual meetings in 1984, 1986, 2000, and 2008; served 
on the editorial board of the Journal of Legal Education from 1999-2002; 
chaired the Curriculum and Research Committee from 1996-1998; was a 
site evaluation summarian from 1994-2000; served a full-time appointment 
as a visiting fellow in 1993-1994; chaired the Section on Criminal Justice 
from 1985-1986; and chaired the Section on Teaching Law Outside of Law 
Schools in 1983-1984.  For the American Bar Association Vic was co-
director of the Equal Justice Division, Criminal Justice Section from 2006-
2008; was a member of the Innocence Committee, Criminal Justice Section 
from 2003-2008; won the Livingston Hall Juvenile Justice Award in 2002; 
was a member of the Law School Administration Committee, Legal 
Education Section from 1998-2000; was an Accreditation Evaluator, Legal 
Education Section from 1991-2001 (and served as team chair from 1998-
2001); and authored the Resolution Opposing the Death Penalty for Juvenile 
Offenders in 1983. 
Vic likewise has been active as an appellate lawyer and an expert 
witness.  For example, he served as co-counsel for the appeals of a fifteen-
year-old Florida boy sentenced to death,
12
 a nine-year-old Pennsylvania boy 
convicted of murder,
13
 a fifteen-year-old Indiana girl sentenced to death,
14
 
and a fifteen-year-old Oklahoma boy sentenced to death,
15
 and was an 
expert witness in death penalty cases in Arizona, Delaware, Florida, 
  
 11. I also received e-mails from friends at other law schools commending Vic when Roper v. 
Simmons was announced and I once noticed a letter from a federal judge in Vic’s office praising Vic’s 
efforts in convincing the Court to put a stop to killing kids.  Vic is too modest to mention it, but I suspect 
there have been many such signs of admiration for Vic’s work sent to him over the years. 
 12. See Allen v. State, 636 So.2d 494 (Fla. 1994). 
 13. See Commonwealth v. Kocher, 602 A.2d 1308 (Pa. 1992). 
 14. See Cooper v. State, 540 N.E.2d 1216 (Ind. 1989). 
 15. See Thompson, 487 U.S. 815. 
4
Ohio Northern University Law Review, Vol. 38 [], Iss. 2, Art. 1
https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/1
2012] A TRIBUTE TO VICTOR L. STREIB 411 
Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
16
  Closer to home, Vic was always 
willing to present works-in-progress talks when I was trying to reinstitute 
that practice as, at the time, the untenured chair of the law college’s faculty 
development committee.  He likewise could be counted on to tap into his 
vast network of connections to bring in outside speakers for our Dean’s 
Lecture Series when I chaired that committee as an assistant professor. 
A WONDERFUL COLLEAGUE AND FAMILY MAN 
Indeed, Vic was particularly helpful to junior colleagues.  He went out 
of his way to make certain that their personnel files included his own 
experienced opinion about the quality of their teaching—invariably 
expressed in extremely supportive terms—and he also attended the research 
presentations we made at faculty workshops.  Trust me when I say that I 
was not the only junior colleague who very much appreciated how 
supportive Vic was to those of us navigating the sometimes stormy waters 
of the tenure track.  Academic politics can be a nasty business, but Vic 
refused to play that game.
17
 
Vic’s collegiality likewise was expressed in more personal ways: he and 
his wonderful wife Lynn Sametz would frequently invite colleagues to 
dinner at their lovely home, especially if they were new to the area and did 
not know how to cook.  Lynn certainly knows how to cook . . . thank you, 
Lynn! 
Of course Vic’s greatest legacy is his family: Lynn and their daughter 
Jessi and son Noah.  Vic is justifiably proud of Lynn, a successful 
academician in her own right, and of Jessi and Noah, both of whom are 
  
 16. See Victor Streib, Faculty Profile, supra note 2.  
 17. Vic is supportive even during his retirement, and even after junior colleagues have received 
tenure.  I, for one, received an e-mail from Vic in the spring of 2011—an e-mail that Vic shared with the 
present ONU Law College Dean and our faculty colleagues—commending the publication of my Oxford 
University Press book on the origins of judicial independence in America.  Vic wrote: 
 
Scott, 
Congratulations on FINALLY(!) getting your extraordinary research into print!  It is, in my 
view, the most impressive work thus far in your career, and it is a wonderful feather in the 
cap of ONU law. Hopefully this will continue to send the message to legal education and the 
legal profession that ONU law faculty members include serious scholars who are publishing 
seminal works in their fields.  Rightly or wrongly, this scholarly reputation of the law faculty 
is the MOST IMPORTANT factor in determining the national reputation of a law school.  
Your work, Scott, has established you as a serious legal scholar and has helped ONU law in 
its never ending quest for reputation, ranking, applications, etc. … 
Vic 
 
E-mail from Victor L. Streib to Scott D. Gerber (Mar. 10, 2011) (on file with author). Needless to say, I 
have saved a copy of this particular e-mail. 
5
Gerber: Introduction to the Tribute to Victor L. Streib:An Ideal Role Mod
Published by DigitalCommons@ONU,
412 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38 
currently completing Ph.D. programs at elite universities.  And Lynn, Jessi, 
and Noah are very proud of Vic, obviously.
18
  The last time I saw Vic was 
one of those precious moments in life that helps to explain why because it 
goes to the heart of the kind of person Vic is: after I downloaded a lovely 
wedding picture of Noah and his new bride that Vic had happily shared with 
the faculty and staff at the law college, I mentioned to Vic that it was clear 
to me that Noah had learned the greatest lesson that a father can teach a son.  
Vic paused and asked, “What’s that?”  I answered, “To marry well above 
your head.”  Vic beamed and said, “He certainly did that.”  He then headed 
to the exit knowing how lucky he was to be able to spend even more time 
with his family during retirement. 
 
* * * * * 
 
I would like to close this Introduction to this wonderful Tribute 
honoring Victor L. Streib by simply saying that my biggest personal regret 
about Vic retiring is that I never got to serve under him when he was 
Dean.
19
  As any good dean knows, law professors are supposed to be 
scholars, not simply classroom teachers or members of campus committees 
that seemingly never meet.  It might enable a law dean to remain in office 
virtually in perpetuity if he or she does not require his faculty to publish, but 
it is a disservice to the students we are charged with educating and to the 
profession that we should be trying to inspire.  Vic knew that, and his long 
and illustrious career is a blueprint for any law professor trying to do the job 
the right way.  Thank you for being such a wonderful role model, Vic.  You 
are a credit to both the law professoriate and the law itself. 
 
  
 18. I enjoyed many a playful give and take with Jessi and Noah about their famous father.  My 
running joke when I saw Jessi at the gym without Vic was to ask whether Vic was at home sitting on the 
couch munching on potato chips.  Vic is health conscious, so I knew the answer was no, but Jessi would 
always laugh too hard to rise to her dad’s defense.  When I saw Noah at the gym lifting weights with Vic 
I would remind the two-sport varsity athlete to make sure his dad did not lift too much weight because 
he might hurt himself being as old as he was.  Noah, like Jessi, would laugh like it was the first time I 
had ever told the joke.  They clearly adore both Vic and Lynn. 
 19. That, and I do not get to eat anymore of Lynn’s fabulous cooking.  North Carolina, where Vic 
and Lynn presently reside, is a long way from Ada. 
6
Ohio Northern University Law Review, Vol. 38 [], Iss. 2, Art. 1
https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/1


English

Introduction to the Tribute to Victor L. Streib:An Ideal Role Model

Denno, Deborah W.

Ohio Northern University Law Review 
Volume 38 Issue 2 Article 2 
How Many Lives Has Victor Streib Saved? A Tribute 
Deborah W. Denno 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review 
 Part of the Law Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Denno, Deborah W. () "How Many Lives Has Victor Streib Saved? A Tribute," Ohio Northern University Law 
Review: Vol. 38: Iss. 2, Article 2. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/2 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the ONU Journals and Publications at 
DigitalCommons@ONU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ohio Northern University Law Review by an 
authorized editor of DigitalCommons@ONU. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@onu.edu. 
413 
How Many Lives Has Victor Streib Saved?  A Tribute  
DEBORAH W. DENNO
*
 
This tribute to Victor Streib focuses on just a few of his standout 
achievements.  Particularly noteworthy are Professor Streib’s landmark 
contributions to litigation and scholarship in two distinct areas of the death 
penalty involving two distinct categories of defendants: juveniles and 
women.  For any lawyer to have accomplished so much in either of these 
realms would be extraordinary, but Professor Streib centered on both with 
definitive, life-saving, results. During it all, he has worn an unusual variety 
of professional hats—professor, scholar, litigator, and law school dean, each 
hat requiring its own particular skills and expertise.
 
 
With respect to juveniles, Streib is a large part of a litigation story that 
has finally ended, at least as far as the death penalty is concerned, and Streib 
can take much credit for that outcome.  Of course I’m talking about Roper 
v. Simmons,
1
 where the Supreme Court of the United States held that the 
Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of persons 
younger than age eighteen at the time their crimes were committed.
2
  
According to Roper, there are three “general” differences between adults 
and juveniles under age eighteen that explain why juveniles “cannot with 
reliability be classified among the worst offenders.”
3
 Juveniles are relatively 
more (1) immature and irresponsible, (2) vulnerable to negative pressures 
from their peers and environment, and (3) fragile and unstable in their 
identities.
4
  These disparities not only heighten the likelihood that juveniles 
will engage in impulsive thinking and conduct, but they also strengthen 
arguments explaining why juveniles may be less culpable.  In the Roper 
Court’s eyes, the crimes of juveniles, however heinous, are less likely to be 
indicative of their character or intent.
5
   
Streib’s work was critical to the Court’s decision in Roper and his 
research was cited throughout the various opinions.
6
  Just as importantly, 
Streib served as appellate counsel in some of the key death penalty cases 
  
 * Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law.  I am grateful to 
Julie Salwen for comments. 
 1. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). 
 2. Id. at 578. 
 3. Id. at 569. 
 4. Id. at 569-70. 
 5. Id. at 570. 
 6. Roper, 543 U.S. at 565, 595, 596, 614-15.   
1
Denno: How Many Lives Has Victor Streib Saved? A Tribute
Published by DigitalCommons@ONU,
414 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38 
upon which Roper was built.  Those cases include Thompson v. Oklahoma,
7
 
a groundbreaking 1988 decision in which the Court prohibited the execution 
of individuals under age sixteen at the time of the crime.
8
  After Thompson, 
Roper’s age extension seemed like the Court’s next logical step.  Through 
Streib’s analyses of statistical information on states’ changes in and uses of 
the death penalty for juveniles, the Roper Court’s majority was able to 
effectively portray the national consensus against the death penalty for those 
under eighteen and thereby justify abolishment of the penalty for that age 
group.
9
  By navigating the real-world of lawyering with an academic focus, 
Streib could compare the legal and interdisciplinary nuances of juvenile 
culpability with the ways this country has punished young people.   
This successful bridging of academics and litigation is also evidenced 
by the hugely prolific and influential body of scholarship that Streib 
produced throughout the modern Supreme Court’s examination of the death 
penalty in the context of juveniles.  In Streib’s groundbreaking book, 
DEATH PENALTY FOR JUVENILES,
10
 for instance, strategically published a 
year before Thompson, Streib intertwines a wide-array of research on the 
history, philosophy, and warped legitimacy of the death penalty for 
juveniles over three centuries, from the late 1600s to the late 1900s.  The 
book also includes a statistical study of the 281 juveniles who were 
executed over those centuries, documenting the overwhelming 
preponderance of minorities.  Such compelling content enables Streib to 
raise forceful arguments suggesting that the constitutional limit for juveniles 
should be age eighteen, thus opening the door for the Court’s decision in 
Roper years later.  Particularly effective is Streib’s investigation of statistics 
and case studies to demonstrate the random nature of juvenile executions.  
While this finding coincides with the arbitrariness of the punishment as 
applied to adults, the results are even more egregious when the spotlight is 
on juveniles, whose lesser levels of culpability and maturity make for 
striking biographies of disparity.  The story of George Stinney provides a 
potent illustration.
11
  Stinney was a black male of fourteen years who stood 
at five-feet-one-inches and weighed ninety-five pounds.  On the day he was 
executed he was so small he could barely fill South Carolina’s electric chair, 
which was built for adults.  In sum, DEATH PENALTY FOR JUVENILES is so 
impeccable in its research, case studies, and arguments, that the outcomes in 
Thompson and Roper appear to follow neatly from Streib’s work. 
  
 7. 487 U.S. 815 (1988). 
 8. Id. at 838. 
 9. Roper, 543 U.S. at 595. 
 10. VICTOR L. STREIB, DEATH PENALTY FOR JUVENILES (1987). 
 11. Id. at 107-09. 
2
Ohio Northern University Law Review, Vol. 38 [], Iss. 2, Art. 2
https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/2
2012] A TRIBUTE TO VICTOR L. STREIB 415 
Streib’s take on female offenders is comparably impressive, a result all 
the more notable because the questions raised about females differ from 
those directed toward juveniles.  Females constitute less than two percent of 
all inmates on death row and only one percent of all inmates executed since 
1973.
12
  Streib asks why there are so few of them when females constitute 
approximately thirteen percent of the arrests for murder.
13
  While 
criminologists have long studied the differences between male and female 
offenders, Streib’s approach is especially powerful because he puts these 
investigations in the context of the death penalty along with a lawyer’s 
understanding of that penalty’s particular demands and requirements.  
What’s more, for over twenty-five years Streib has documented every 
female sentenced to death and executed in the United States, thereby 
offering insightful data about state and national trends as well as individual 
demographics and the lives of the inmates themselves.
14
   
In Streib’s book, THE FAIRER DEATH:  EXECUTING WOMEN IN OHIO, 
15
 
for example, Streib gives an overview of the extent of sex bias in the death 
penalty nationally and the numerical differences between men and women 
executed over time before narrowing in on the personal stories of the 
women executed and sentenced to death in Ohio.  While Streib recognizes 
that the numbers of women are not sufficiently large to make a statistical 
point, the vividness of their personal vignettes makes a different kind of 
statement—one that stresses the incredible arbitrariness of the penalty when 
it is applied to so few who hardly seem the worst of their sex.  These 
women’s stories illustrate the differential impact of such factors as race (a 
continual theme in Streib’s work), mental deficiency, confessions, and 
physical demeanor at trial, among others.  In all, Streib probes the legal 
reasons why these women were selected over the hundreds who were not, 
lamenting that their numbers are so small they could be forgotten.  Of 
course, with Streib’s account, their stories will be preserved. 
Victor Streib may be retiring from academia, but his academic work 
will stay put, guiding generations to come as it has impacted on current and 
past generations.  Consider this question, for example: How many juvenile 
lives have already been saved by Thompson and Roper alone?  While 
statistical projections are speculative, we know the numbers would have 
  
 12. Women and the Death Penalty, DEATH PENALTY INFO. CENTER, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo 
.org/women-and-death-penalty (last visited Feb. 19, 2012).   
 13. Victor L. Streib, Sentencing Women to Death, 16 CRIM. JUST. 24, 25 (2001).   
 14. Victor Streib, Death Penalty for Female Offenders, January 1, 1973, through October 31, 
2010, DEATH PENALTY INFO. CENTER, no. 65, 2010 at 10, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/document 
s/femaledeathrow.pdf. 
 15. VICTOR L. STREIB, THE FAIRER DEATH:  EXECUTING WOMEN IN OHIO (2006).   
3
Denno: How Many Lives Has Victor Streib Saved? A Tribute
Published by DigitalCommons@ONU,
416 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38 
been substantial.  They would also have included a disproportionate number 
of poor minority youths with inadequate legal representation residing in 
southern states.  Clearly, some percentage of those juveniles would have 
been innocent.  Preventing these youths’ executions is an amazing legacy 
for Streib to leave.  In addition, Streib’s work exposes the injustices of sex 
differences in the death penalty, both between males and females and within 
the female population itself.  Altogether, these findings fuel more general 
doubts about the death penalty’s persistence. 
This tribute to Professor Streib is modest compared to what he has 
accomplished.  Additional triumphs will be celebrated by, among many 
others, the faculty and students of the Claude W. Pettit College of Law.  For 
them, Streib leaves the imprint of professor, mentor, colleague, dean, and 
galvanizer.  For all of us in the legal profession, Victor Streib sets the 
highest, most inspirational, standard we could possibly hold. 
 
4
Ohio Northern University Law Review, Vol. 38 [], Iss. 2, Art. 2
https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/2


How Many Lives Has Victor Streib Saved? A Tribute

Radelet, Michael L.

Ohio Northern University Law Review 
Volume 38 Issue 2 Article 6 
Standing for the Most Vulnerable 
Michael L. Radelet 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review 
 Part of the Law Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Radelet, Michael L. () "Standing for the Most Vulnerable," Ohio Northern University Law Review: Vol. 38: 
Iss. 2, Article 6. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/6 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the ONU Journals and Publications at 
DigitalCommons@ONU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ohio Northern University Law Review by an 
authorized editor of DigitalCommons@ONU. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@onu.edu. 
431 
Standing for the Most Vulnerable 
MICHAEL L. RADELET

 
It takes a special sort of person to dedicate his or her professional career 
to fighting for those who are at the bottom of the barrel.  Questions of “just 
desserts” aside, there are few (if any) groups in the United States today who 
are closer to the bottom of the barrel than those 3,500 or so who are 
awaiting the day when they will be strapped on a gurney and dispatched to 
the hereafter.
1
  Professor Victor L. Streib not only dedicates his time to 
working with death-row inmates, but his strongest scholarly and legal 
contributions have been directed at the most vulnerable of those on that 
bottom rung: juveniles, women, and the mentally retarded.  Like Mother 
Teresa, Streib is a man who has walked the walk. 
It is almost impossible to imagine that Professor Streib is beginning his 
eighth decade on our planet.  He continues to approach scholarly issues with 
the energy of a first-year associate in a New York law firm and the 
creativity of a student who might just have graduated at the top of her or his 
law school class.  Today he has plenty of laurels to rest on, but he looks 
forward to retirement as a time to shed even more light on contemporary 
death penalty debates. 
A native of Marion, Indiana, Streib completed his undergraduate work 
in Industrial Engineering at Auburn in 1966 and his law degree at Indiana 
University-Bloomington in 1970.  He then spent two years with the Institute 
for Research in Public Safety at Indiana University (“IU”) before accepting 
a tenure-track position in what is now IU’s Department of Criminal Justice.  
In 1978 he began a two-year stay at New England College of Law in Boston 
and then, in 1980, he began a sixteen-year tenure at Cleveland-Marshall 
College of Law.  In 1996 he was named Dean of Ohio Northern University 
Pettit College of Law. 
Streib was a generalist before becoming a specialist.  His first book, 
published in 1978, was a critical overview of the juvenile justice system in 
the United States.
2
  It examined the history and philosophy of America’s 
  
  Professor, Department of Sociology and Institute of Behavioral Sciences, University of 
Colorado-Boulder. 
 1. As of January 1, 2011, there were 3,191 men and 60 women awaiting execution in the United 
States.  Deborah Fins, Death Row U.S.A., NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. 1 
(Winter 2011), http://naacpldf.org/files/publications/DRUSA_Winter_2011.pdf. 
 2. VICTOR L. STREIB, JUVENILE JUSTICE IN AMERICA (1978). 
1
Radelet: Standing for the Most Vulnerable
Published by DigitalCommons@ONU,
432 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38 
treatment of juveniles by the criminal justice system as well as the many 
shortcomings of this approach.
3
  Indeed, in the book Streib outlined some 
thirty recommendations for how the juvenile justice system could be 
improved.
4
    
Shortly after moving to Cleveland, however, he began to focus his 
scholarship on death penalty issues, specifically on the death penalty for 
juveniles.  His first major publication in the area was in 1983,
5
 and other 
important works on the problem soon followed.
6
  At the time, very little was 
known about the issue; undoubtedly most scholars would have thought that 
only a handful of children had been executed in the history of the United 
States.  In his 1983 article, Streib told the history and summarized the 
debate over juvenile executions, and gave information on 287 executions in 
American history that took the lives of children aged seventeen or younger 
at the time of their crimes.
7
  Now almost thirty years old, that article can be 
seen in retrospect as the bugle call at the beginning of the horse race.  It 
opened the modern debate on the wisdom and morality of executing 
youthful offenders, and has proved to be enormously important. 
In 1987, Streib finished a book that remains the Bible in this field.
8
  It 
was fittingly published by Indiana University Press,
9
 the university where 
Streib received his legal training and spent the first eight years of his career.  
The book provides readers with an overview of the constitutional issues 
involved in executions of juveniles, an overview of the cases of juveniles 
who were executed throughout American history,
10
 a discussion of the 
arguments for and against public policies that allowed states to execute 
youthful offenders, and a snapshot of the procedures used in various states 
that were continuing to sentence juveniles to death in the 1980s.
11
  In the 
years since, no scholar or litigator can deal with the juvenile death penalty 
without first studying this book. 
  
 3. See generally id.  
 4. Id. at 51-104. 
 5. Victor L. Streib, Death Penalty for Children: The American Experience with Capital Pun-
ishment for Crimes Committed While under Age Eighteen, 36 OKLA. L. REV. 613 (1983). 
 6. See, e.g., Victor L. Streib, Capital Punishment of Children in Ohio: “They’d Never Send a 
Boy of Seventeen to the Chair in Ohio, Would They?”, 18 AKRON L. REV. 51 (1984-85); Victor L. 
Streib, The Eighth Amendment and Capital Punishment of Juveniles, 34 CLEV. ST. L. REV. 363 (1985-
86).  
 7. Streib, supra note 5, at 613-16, 618-19. 
 8. VICTOR L. STREIB, DEATH PENALTY FOR JUVENILES (1987). 
 9. Id. 
 10. The book included 281 cases of juvenile executions, a figure that updated his earlier work.  
Id. at 55.  
 11. See generally id. 
2
Ohio Northern University Law Review, Vol. 38 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/6
2012] A TRIBUTE TO VICTOR L. STREIB 433 
Streib has always been a scholar who credits others for their assistance 
with his projects.  In particular, I have always been impressed with his 
willingness to share the spotlight with Watt Espy, an Alabama death penalty 
researcher who died in August, 2009.
12
  Espy, who never had a college 
degree,
13
 spent his life trying to document every execution in American 
history.
14
  He lived in poverty and rarely got credit for his scholarship.  
Streib learned of Espy’s work in the early 1980s and spent several days with 
him in Alabama going though the information he had gathered on 
executions of juveniles.  Unlike some other academics, Streib always gave 
Espy credit and respect.  He once described Espy as “an undisputed gem.”
15
  
As Streib noted in the preface and acknowledgements section of his 1987 
book, Death Penalty for Juveniles: 
   Two individuals deserve special mention.  One is a recognized 
giant in the field of death penalty research, Watt Espy.
16
  He 
generously opened his files to me originally when I sought to 
identify each juvenile execution and has remained a loyal and 
priceless contributor to this research ever since.  Along with so 
many other death penalty researchers, I have achieved this level in 
my research only by standing on the shoulders of Watt Espy.
17
 
Espy thought of Streib as a true hero.  For the last twenty-five years of his 
life, Espy had a picture of Streib on the wall over his desk.
18
   
Soon after completing his book on juveniles, Streib shifted gears and 
began to study executions of women.  The first paper, coauthored with Lynn 
Sametz, built on his work on the juvenile death penalty.
19
  Other papers 
about the death penalty for females soon followed,
20
 as did a book in 2006.
21
 
  
 12. See M. Watt Espy Papers (APAP-301), 1730-2008: Biographical Sketch, UNIV. AT ALBANY, 
http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/findais/eresources/findingaids/apap301.xml (last visited Mar. 14, 
2012).  
 13. Id. 
 14. For information about Espy’s work, see, e.g., Bruce Krasnow, Chronicler Spends Life with 
Death, FLORIDA TIMES-UNION (Jacksonville), Dec. 1, 1986, at A1; Ronald Smothers, Historian’s Death 
Penalty Obsession, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 21, 1987, at A16; Francis X. Clines, A Dismayed Historian of the 
Gallows, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 18, 1992, at A16.  Espy’s papers are now housed in the National Death 
Penalty Archives in the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives.  See M. Watt 
Espy Papers, supra note 12.  At the time of this writing, the University at Albany is trying to convince 
Professor Streib to add some of his papers to this collection. 
 15. Bruce Krasnow, supra note 14, at A5.   
 16. The other, not surprisingly, is his wife, Lynn Sametz. 
 17. STREIB, supra note 8, at x.   
 18. However, Espy could never remember how to pronounce “Streib,” doing so without a long 
“i.” 
 19. Victor L. Streib & Lynn Sametz, Executing Female Juveniles, 22 CONN. L. REV. 3 (1989).  
This is one of five publications that Vic and Lynn coauthored.  She holds an M.A. in Special Education 
 
3
Radelet: Standing for the Most Vulnerable
Published by DigitalCommons@ONU,
434 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38 
Streib has always been generous sharing the data that he gathered for 
his own work with others who share his interests.  In January 1984, he 
published the first issue of “The Juvenile Death Penalty Today,” which 
went through seventy-six updates
22
 until execution of offenders aged 
seventeen or younger at the time of the crime was finally banned by the 
Supreme Court in 2005.
23
 Shortly after he began distributing the 
information on the death penalty for juveniles, he undertook a similar 
project summarizing data on the death penalty for women.  He continues to 
update that document today.
24
  I cannot imagine a college class on the death 
penalty today that would not list these two documents as required or 
suggested reading. 
By the early 1990s, Streib expanded his interests to include more global 
issues in death penalty debates.  In 1993 he published one of the most 
important edited books on the death penalty in the modern era, with 
excerpts from over forty scholarly articles that discuss a wide array of death 
penalty issues.
25
  Ten years later, the first edition of a wonderful overview 
of death penalty issues, Death Penalty in a Nutshell, first appeared.
26
 
There really is no other book like it on the market: in three hundred pages 
the monograph synthesizes all the major issues in contemporary death 
penalty debates.  It is useful not only in law school courses, but as a 
supplement for undergraduate criminology courses. 
With this record, it is not surprising that Streib has had a hand in 
virtually all of the litigation surrounding the juvenile death penalty over the 
past three decades.  He has struggled with the (sometimes) conflicting roles 
  
and a Ph.D. in Education, and has been a constant sounding board for Vic throughout his career.  In 
addition to the five papers, they also collaborated twenty-eight years ago to produce twin children, Jessi 
and Noah.  Lynn is currently the Associate Director of the Center for Youth, Family and Community 
Partnerships, University of North Carolina Greensboro. 
 20. See, e.g., Victor L. Streib, Death Penalty for Female Offenders, 58 U. CIN. L. REV. 845 
(1990); Victor L. Streib, Death Penalty for Battered Women, 20 FLA. ST. U. L. REV. 163 (1992). 
 21. VICTOR L. STREIB, THE FAIRER DEATH: EXECUTING WOMEN IN OHIO (2006). 
 22. The final issue is dated October 7, 2005.  See Victor L. Streib, The Juvenile Death Penalty 
Today: Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes, January 1, 1973 – February 28, 2005, 3 
(Issue # 77) (Oct. 7, 2005), available at 
http://www.law.onu.edu/faculty_staff/faculty_profiles/coursematerials/streib/juvdeath.pdf .  By this 
time, Streib had documented 366 executions of juveniles in American history.  Id. at 3.  In the pre-
Internet era, spanning the first ten years or so of this publication, Streib would photocopy several dozen 
copies and mail them to a growing list of subscribers. 
 23. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 578 (2005). 
 24. Victor Streib, Death Penalty for Female Offenders, January 1, 1973, through October 31, 
2010, DEATH PENALTY INFO. CENTER, no. 65, 2010 at 2 (Nov. 3, 2010), http://www.deathpenaltyinfo. 
org/documents/femaledeathrow.pdf. 
 25. VICTOR L. STREIB, A CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ANTHOLOGY (1993). 
 26. VICTOR L. STREIB, DEATH PENALTY IN A NUTSHELL (2003).  The third edition of this book 
was published in 2009. 
4
Ohio Northern University Law Review, Vol. 38 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/6
2012] A TRIBUTE TO VICTOR L. STREIB 435 
of scholar and advocate,
27
 but just a few weeks after he finished his 1987 
book he became co-counsel for Wayne Thompson, who was sentenced to 
death in Oklahoma for a murder committed when he was fifteen.
28
  Later, he 
also became co-counsel for other juveniles on death row, Paula Cooper
29
 
and Jerome Allen.
30
  I am sure that he has spent literally thousands of hours 
in uncompensated time brainstorming about various death penalty issues 
with both litigators and scholars. 
In 1998, Streib wrote an essay that linked death penalty issues for 
“second class citizens”—juveniles, women, and the mentally retarded.
31
  By 
any measure and for different reasons, these demographic groups are 
especially vulnerable in death penalty proceedings.  In part, this is precisely 
why the Supreme Court has banned the death penalty for two of the three 
groups.
32
 Female defendants, too, can have special vulnerabilities: in 
determining punishment for women, jurors and judges need to be aware of 
the possibility that the defendant was acting under the domination of a male 
accomplice, or had a history of abuse from male partners or acquaintances 
that dramatically increases the probability of criminal violence. 
Ohio Northern University (“ONU”) is fortunate to have attracted to its 
faculty a scholar with such a strong commitment to the general principles on 
which the university was founded.  ONU is a private university affiliated 
with the United Methodist Church (“UMC”).
33
  In 1956 the UMC became 
one of the first major organized religions in the United States to take a 
formal (and firm) stand against the death penalty.
34
  Their 1956 statement 
read, in part, “[w]e stand for the application of the redemptive principle to 
  
 27. Victor L. Streib, Academic Research and Advocacy Research, 36 CLEV. ST. L. REV. 253 
(1988). 
 28. Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 838 (1988) (banning the death penalty for offenders 
aged fifteen or younger). 
 29. Cooper v. State, 540 N.E.2d 1216, 1217 (Ind. 1989) (a case that tested the retroactivity of 
Thompson and ultimately banned the death penalty in Indiana for offenders aged fifteen or younger). 
 30. Allen v. State, 636 So.2d 494, 496 (Fla. 1994) (Allen was sentenced to death by a judge who 
apparently hoped the Supreme Court would ultimately reverse the Thompson decision; the result was 
that the Florida Supreme Court firmly banned the death penalty in Florida for offenders aged fifteen or 
younger). 
 31. Victor L. Streib, Executing Women, Juveniles, and the Mentally Retarded: Second Class 
Citizens in Capital Punishment, in AMERICA’S EXPERIMENT WITH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: REFLECTIONS 
ON THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF THE ULTIMATE PENAL SANCTION 301 (James R. Acker, Robert 
M. Bohm & Charles S. Lanier eds., 2d ed. 2003).  
 32. The Court banned the imposition of the death penalty on mentally retarded defendants in 
Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 321 (2002). 
 33. Ohio Northern University, Mission and Purpose Statement, OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY, 
http://www.onu.edu/about_onu/mission_and_purpose (last visited Mar. 14, 2012). 
 34. Tom McAnally, Death penalty continues despite church’s 50-year opposition, THE UNITED 
METHODIST CHURCH (Oct. 19, 2006), http://www.umc.org/site/c.gjJTJbMUIuE/b.2176103/k.A6EA/Dea 
th_penalty_continues_despite_churchs_50year_opposition.htm.  
5
Radelet: Standing for the Most Vulnerable
Published by DigitalCommons@ONU,
436 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38 
the treatment of offenders against the law, to reform of penal and 
correctional methods, and to criminal court procedures. [For this reason] 
[w]e deplore the use of capital punishment.”
35
 
These are stands that have guided the career of Professor Victor Streib.  
May his work continue to inspire the ONU law students and faculty, as it 
has and will continue to inspire contemporary and future students of the 
death penalty in America. 
 
  
 35. United Methodist Church Marks 50th Anniversary of Stance Against Death Penalty, DEATH 
PENALTY INFORMATION, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/1707 (last visited Mar. 9, 2012).   
6
Ohio Northern University Law Review, Vol. 38 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol38/iss2/6


Standing for the Most Vulnerable

Leister, Laura

Perdue v. Kenny A.130 S. Ct. 1662 (2010)

Green, William C.

Creating a Common Market for Wine:Boutique Wines, Direct Shipment, and State Alcohol Regulation

Duey, Jason S.

What’s the Problem Money Can’t Solve?Why Determining the Validity of a Copyright Application Is aClear Precondition to an Infringement Action

Baumann, Joseph J.

Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority132 S. Ct. 1702 (2012)

Miller, Monica

Dimitrov, Joseph

Bornstein, Brian H

Bibles in the Jury Room: Psychological Theories QuestionJudicial Assumptions

McQuain, Elise N.

Inheritance of Frozen Reproductive Material

Miller, Mark C.

Constitutional Interpretation and Policy-Making: TheGovernance as Dialogue Movement

Ohio Northern University

Not a member yet