The Future of America's Death Penalty

The Future of America's Death Penalty PDF Author: Charles S. Lanier
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781594604263
Category : Capital punishment
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Future of America's Death Penalty, comprised of original chapters authored by nationally distinguished scholars, is an ambitious effort to identify the most critical issues confronting the future of capital punishment in the United States and the steps that must be taken to gather and analyze the information that will be necessary for informed policy judgments. Contributors articulate the most pressing issues of administration, litigation, legislation, and executive action confronting the future of capital punishment, and identify research strategies designed to supply answers to those questions. The book represents a valuable academic contribution, particularly within criminal justice and law, and is of interest as well to policymakers and practitioners. It emerges a generation after the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) heralded the "modern era" of capital punishment, and at a time when the efficacy and operation of the death penalty are under intensive scrutiny by governmental study commissions throughout the country. The book is organized into six sections: (A) Institutional and Disciplinary Perspectives on the Death Penalty; (B) Capital Punishment: Public Policy Perspectives; (C) The Death Penalty as Applied; (D) Participants in the Capital Punishment Process; (E) The Punishment of Death; and (F) Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Toward a Research Agenda for the Future. "This is a great collection. It should be on many bookshelves and in all serious libraries." -- Law & Politics Book Review "The Future of America's Death Penalty fulfills its goals... [I]t provides a useful resource for social scientists studying America's death penalty." -- Eric N. Waltenburg, The Justice System Journal

The Future of America's Death Penalty

The Future of America's Death Penalty PDF Author: Charles S. Lanier
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781594604263
Category : Capital punishment
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Future of America's Death Penalty, comprised of original chapters authored by nationally distinguished scholars, is an ambitious effort to identify the most critical issues confronting the future of capital punishment in the United States and the steps that must be taken to gather and analyze the information that will be necessary for informed policy judgments. Contributors articulate the most pressing issues of administration, litigation, legislation, and executive action confronting the future of capital punishment, and identify research strategies designed to supply answers to those questions. The book represents a valuable academic contribution, particularly within criminal justice and law, and is of interest as well to policymakers and practitioners. It emerges a generation after the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) heralded the "modern era" of capital punishment, and at a time when the efficacy and operation of the death penalty are under intensive scrutiny by governmental study commissions throughout the country. The book is organized into six sections: (A) Institutional and Disciplinary Perspectives on the Death Penalty; (B) Capital Punishment: Public Policy Perspectives; (C) The Death Penalty as Applied; (D) Participants in the Capital Punishment Process; (E) The Punishment of Death; and (F) Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Toward a Research Agenda for the Future. "This is a great collection. It should be on many bookshelves and in all serious libraries." -- Law & Politics Book Review "The Future of America's Death Penalty fulfills its goals... [I]t provides a useful resource for social scientists studying America's death penalty." -- Eric N. Waltenburg, The Justice System Journal

Courting Death

Courting Death PDF Author: Carol S. Steiker
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674737423
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Before constitutional regulation -- The Supreme Court steps in -- The invisibility of race in the constitutional revolution -- Between the Supreme Court and the states -- The failures of regulation -- An unsustainable system? -- Recurring patterns in constitutional regulation -- The future of the American death penalty -- Life after death

America's Experiment with Capital Punishment

America's Experiment with Capital Punishment PDF Author: James R. Acker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
Critically analyze the history, politics, law, empirical evidence, and principled underpinnings of the contemporary debate about the death penalty in America. They also assess likely future trends in capital punishment law and practice.

Debating the Death Penalty

Debating the Death Penalty PDF Author: Hugo Adam Bedau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199745064
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
When news breaks that a convicted murderer, released from prison, has killed again, or that an innocent person has escaped the death chamber in light of new DNA evidence, arguments about capital punishment inevitably heat up. Few controversies continue to stir as much emotion as this one, and public confusion is often the result. This volume brings together seven experts--judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and philosophers--to debate the death penalty in a spirit of open inquiry and civil discussion. Here, as the contributors present their reasons for or against capital punishment, the multiple facets of the issue are revealed in clear and thought-provoking detail. Is the death penalty a viable deterrent to future crimes? Does the imposition of lesser penalties, such as life imprisonment, truly serve justice in cases of the worst offences? Does the legal system discriminate against poor or minority defendants? Is the possibility of executing innocent persons sufficient grounds for abolition? In confronting such questions and making their arguments, the contributors marshal an impressive array of evidence, both statistical and from their own experiences working on death penalty cases. The book also includes the text of Governor George Ryan's March 2002 speech in which he explained why he had commuted the sentences of all prisoners on Illinois's death row. By representing the viewpoints of experts who face the vexing questions about capital punishment on a daily basis, Debating the Death Penalty makes a vital contribution to a more nuanced understanding of the moral and legal problems underlying this controversy.

America's Experiment with Capital Punishment

America's Experiment with Capital Punishment PDF Author: James R. Acker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Capital punishment
Languages : en
Pages : 828

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Book Description
Comprises 21 essays which analyze changes in capital punishment and its administration over the last 25 years and explores issues relevant to the present and future of the death penalty in America. The essays address capital punishment public opinion, law and politics, the justice of the death penalty, the utility of the capital sanction, jury decision making, defense counsel, race discrimination, mitigation theory, cost, habeas corpus, victims, the role of mental health professionals, and executive clemency. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Road to Abolition?

The Road to Abolition? PDF Author: Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814762247
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
At the start of the twenty-first century, America is in the midst of a profound national reconsideration of the death penalty. There has been a dramatic decline in the number of people being sentenced to death as well as executed, exonerations have become common, and the number of states abolishing the death penalty is on the rise. The essays featured in The Road to Abolition? track this shift in attitudes toward capital punishment, and consider whether or not the death penalty will ever be abolished in America. The interdisciplinary group of experts gathered by Charles J. Ogletree Jr., and Austin Sarat ask and attempt to answer the hard questions that need to be addressed if the death penalty is to be abolished. Will the death penalty end only to be replaced with life in prison without parole? Will life without the possibility of parole become, in essence, the new death penalty? For abolitionists, might that be a pyrrhic victory? The contributors discuss how the death penalty might be abolished, with particular emphasis on the current debate over lethal injection as a case study on why and how the elimination of certain forms of execution might provide a model for the larger abolition of the death penalty.

Let the Lord Sort Them

Let the Lord Sort Them PDF Author: Maurice Chammah
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1524760277
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America “If you’re one of those people who despair that nothing changes, and dream that something can, this is a story of how it does.”—Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times Book Review WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment. Then, amid a larger wave of criminal justice reform, came the death penalty’s decline, a trend so durable that even in Texas the punishment appears again close to extinction. In Let the Lord Sort Them, Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched. We meet Elsa Alcala, the orphaned daughter of a Mexican American family who found her calling as a prosecutor in the nation’s death penalty capital, before becoming a judge on the state’s highest court. We meet Danalynn Recer, a lawyer who became obsessively devoted to unearthing the life stories of men who committed terrible crimes, and fought for mercy in courtrooms across the state. We meet death row prisoners—many of them once-famous figures like Henry Lee Lucas, Gary Graham, and Karla Faye Tucker—along with their families and the families of their victims. And we meet the executioners, who struggle openly with what society has asked them to do. In tracing these interconnected lives against the rise of mass incarceration in Texas and the country as a whole, Chammah explores what the persistence of the death penalty tells us about forgiveness and retribution, fairness and justice, history and myth. Written with intimacy and grace, Let the Lord Sort Them is the definitive portrait of a particularly American institution.

Deterrence and the Death Penalty

Deterrence and the Death Penalty PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309254167
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
Many studies during the past few decades have sought to determine whether the death penalty has any deterrent effect on homicide rates. Researchers have reached widely varying, even contradictory, conclusions. Some studies have concluded that the threat of capital punishment deters murders, saving large numbers of lives; other studies have concluded that executions actually increase homicides; still others, that executions have no effect on murder rates. Commentary among researchers, advocates, and policymakers on the scientific validity of the findings has sometimes been acrimonious. Against this backdrop, the National Research Council report Deterrence and the Death Penalty assesses whether the available evidence provides a scientific basis for answering questions of if and how the death penalty affects homicide rates. This new report from the Committee on Law and Justice concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates. The key question is whether capital punishment is less or more effective as a deterrent than alternative punishments, such as a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Yet none of the research that has been done accounted for the possible effect of noncapital punishments on homicide rates. The report recommends new avenues of research that may provide broader insight into any deterrent effects from both capital and noncapital punishments.

Capital Punishment and the American Agenda

Capital Punishment and the American Agenda PDF Author: Franklin E. Zimring
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521378635
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This book redefines the central political and legal issues of the death penalty in the light of the social, political, and moral conditions of the United States in the 1980s. The book, which shows a United States pursuing an active execution policy, is an original and compelling contribution to the discussion of the future of the death penalty.

Symposium

Symposium PDF Author: University of Miami. School of Law
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Capital punishment
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description