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Death Penalty (death + penalty)
Selected AbstractsON REDUCING WHITE SUPPORT FOR THE DEATH PENALTY: A PESSIMISTIC APPRAISALCRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2005STEVEN E. BARKAN [source] THE DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUGS IS A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW; EFFICACY,WHETHER REAL OR IMAGINED,PROVIDES NO EXCUSEADDICTION, Issue 12 2009RICK LINES No abstract is available for this article. [source] REJECTING THE DEATH PENALTY: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN THE TRADITIONTHE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 3 2008E. CHRISTIAN BRUGGER First page of article [source] A Global Moratorium on the Death PenaltyNEW PERSPECTIVES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2009BERNARD KOUCHNER No abstract is available for this article. [source] Murdering Myths: The Story Behind the Death Penalty , By Judith W. KayRELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2007Lloyd Steffen No abstract is available for this article. [source] The Biblical Truth About America's Death Penalty , By Dale S. RecinellaRELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2007Judith W. Kay No abstract is available for this article. [source] Homicide, psychopathology, prosecutorial and jury discretion and the death penaltyCRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 4 2000Chief, Division of Forensic Psychiatry, Richard M. Yarvis MD MPH Professor of Clinical Psychiatry Introduction The American preoccupation with the death penalty persists and, in fact, shows no sign of abatement. This is demonstrated not only by attitudinal measures but also by the quickening pace of executions. In California, homicide convictions can result in either 25-year-to-life, life-with-no-possibility-of-parole, or death sentences. The ultimate outcome in any given case is determined by a complex interaction of prosecutorial and jury decisions. Three vignettes illustrate how heinous crimes have been handled quite variably. Method A data set comprising 115 homicide cases was examined. To determine how murderers who qualify for the death penalty differed, if at all, from those who did not so qualify, 52 defendants who met the criteria for a death sentence were compared with 63 who did not. Criteria utilized and ignored by prosecutors in seeking the death penalty were analysed by comparing 39 cases in which death sentences could have been and were sought with 13 cases in which prosecutors chose to seek a lesser penalty instead. Finally, criteria utilized and ignored by juries to reach sentencing decisions were analysed by comparing 25 cases in which juries chose not to hand down death sentences with 14 cases in which they did render death verdicts. Results Special circumstance murderers did not differ significantly on personal variables from ordinary murderers. (1) Special circumstances were invariably charged when more than one criterion for this was present. Robbery and sexual assault usually provoked a special circumstances charge. Mitigating factors did not deter prosecutors from charging a special circumstance. (2) There was no excess of aggravating factors in individuals sentenced to death by juries, indeed there was a trend for the opposite to be the case, but there was a trend for mitigating factors to be commoner in those excused the death penalty. Conclusion It is not clear that the death penalty process in California carries out the legislature's intent but the US Supreme Court's 1976 mandate that mitigating and aggravating factors should provide discretion may be having a modest impact. Copyright © 2000 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source] THE SHORT-TERM EFFECTS OF EXECUTIONS ON HOMICIDES: DETERRENCE, DISPLACEMENT, OR BOTH?,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2009KENNETH C. LAND Does the death penalty save lives? In recent years, a new round of research has been using annual time-series panel data from the 50 U.S. states for 25 or so years from the 1970s to the late 1990s that claims to find many lives saved through reductions in subsequent homicide rates after executions. This research, in turn, has produced a round of critiques, which concludes that these findings are not robust enough to model even small changes in specifications that yield dramatically different results. A principal reason for this sensitivity of the findings is that few state-years exist (about 1 percent of all state-years) in which six or more executions have occurred. To provide a different perspective, we focus on Texas, a state that has used the death penalty with sufficient frequency to make possible relatively stable estimates of the homicide response to executions. In addition, we narrow the observation intervals for recording executions and homicides from the annual calendar year to monthly intervals. Based on time-series analyses and independent-validation tests, our best-fitting model shows that, from January 1994 through December 2005, evidence exists of modest, short-term reductions in homicides in Texas in the first and fourth months that follow an execution,about 2.5 fewer homicides total. Another model suggests, however, that in addition to homicide reductions, some displacement of homicides may be possible from one month to another in the months after an execution, which reduces the total reduction in homicides after an execution to about .5 during a 12-month period. Implications for additional research and the need for future analysis and replication are discussed. [source] IMAGES OF GOD AND PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: DOES A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH A LOVING GOD MATTER?,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2006JAMES D. UNNEVER This study argues that the nature and intensity of a person's relationship with God creates a transposable cognitive schema that shapes people's views toward public policies such as executing convicted murderers. In this context, we investigate whether Americans who report having a close personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support the death penalty. We hypothesize that such a relationship tempers the tendency to see punitiveness as an appropriate response to human failings. Individuals who hold a loving God image are more likely to believe that God responds to those who have "failed" or "sinned" by demonstrating unconditional love, forgiveness, and mercy. Accordingly, support for capital punishment is problematic because it contradicts the image of a merciful, forgiving deity; God's purpose,and admonition to believers,is to demonstrate compassion toward those who have trespassed against others. We test these possibilities using the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS). Controlling for a range of religious factors and other known predictors of death penalty attitudes, the results show that Americans with a personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support capital punishment for convicted murderers. [source] Don't scrap the death penaltyCRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 4 2009Paul H. Rubin First page of article [source] EXECUTING THE INNOCENT AND SUPPORT FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICYCRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2005JAMES D. UNNEVER Research Summary: The issue of whether innocent people have been executed is now at the center of the debate concerning the legitimacy of capital punishment. The purpose of this research was to use data collected by the Gallup Organization in 2003 to investigate whether Americans who believed that an innocent person had been executed were less likely to support capital punishment. We also explored whether the association varied by race, given that African Americans are disproportionately affected by the death penalty. Our results indicated that three-quarters of Americans believed that an innocent person had been executed for a crime they did not commit within the last five years and that this belief was associated with lower levels of support for capital punishment, especially among those who thought this sanction was applied unfairly. In addition, our analyses revealed that believing an innocent person had been executed had a stronger association with altering African American than white support for the death penalty. Policy Implications: A key claim of death penalty advocates is that a high proportion of the public supports capital punishment. In this context, scholars opposing this sanction have understood the importance of showing that the public's support for executing offenders is contingent and shallower than portrayed by typical opinion polls. The current research joins this effort by arguing that the prospect of executing innocents potentially impacts public support for the death penalty and, in the least, creates ideological space for a reconsideration of the legitimacy of capital punishment. [source] Drug trafficking: time to abolish the death penaltyADDICTION, Issue 8 2009GRIFFITH EDWARDS No abstract is available for this article. [source] Goethe, His Duke and Infanticide: New Documents and Reflections on a Controversial ExecutionGERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 1 2008W. Daniel Wilson ABSTRACT It has been known since the 1930s that in 1783 Goethe cast his vote as a member of the governing Privy Council (,Geheimes Consilium') of Saxe-Weimar to retain the death penalty for infanticide. This decision, which followed a request by Duke Carl August for his councillors' advice on the matter, has moved to the centre of controversies over the political Goethe, since it meant that Johanna Höhn of Tannroda, who had been convicted of infanticide, was subsequently executed. The issue draws its special poignancy from Goethe's empathetic portrayal of the infanticide committed by Margarete in the earliest known version of Faust. The simultaneous publication in 2004 of two editions documenting the wider issue of infanticide and other crimes relating to sexual morality in Saxe-Weimar has re-ignited the controversy. The present article reexamines the issues, presenting new evidence that establishes the discourse on the question of the death penalty for infanticide in books that Duke Carl August and Goethe purchased, and presents the script of the public trial re-enactment (,Halsgericht') on the market square in Weimar directly preceding the execution. It concludes that this discourse ran heavily against the death penalty, and it counters attempts in recent scholarship to draw attention away from the Höhn execution. [source] The ,Halsgericht' for the Execution of Johanna Höhn in Weimar, 28 November 1783GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 1 2008W. Daniel Wilson ABSTRACT This previously unpublished document, found in the papers of the Weimar publisher, industrialist and court official F. J. Bertuch, represents the script for the public ceremony preceding the execution of the infanticide Johanna Catharina Höhn. Since Goethe, as a member of the powerful ,Geheimes Consilium' of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, had recently cast his vote to retain the death penalty for execution, the script has some significance for an evaluation of his administrative activities and his political ethos. The execution took place against a background of tension concerning its legitimacy at a time when the punishment of women who had committed infanticide was hotly contested. [source] Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2002Ian Manners Twenty years ago, in the pages of the, Journal of Common Market Studies, Hedley Bull launched a searing critique of the European Community's ,civilian power' in international affairs. Since that time the increasing role of the European Union (EU) in areas of security and defence policy has led to a seductiveness in adopting the notion of ,military power Europe'. In contrast, I will attempt to argue that by thinking beyond traditional conceptions of the EU's international role and examining the case study of its international pursuit of the abolition of the death penalty, we may best conceive of the EU as a ,normative power Europe'. [source] Priming Crime and Activating Blackness: Understanding the Psychological Impact of the Overrepresentation of Blacks as Lawbreakers on Television NewsJOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 2 2007Travis L. Dixon Two experiments examined the extent to which U.S. viewers' perceptions that Blacks face structural limitations to success, support for the death penalty, and culpability judgments could be influenced by exposure to racialized crime news. Participants were exposed to a majority of Black suspects, a majority of White suspects, unidentified suspects, and noncrime news stories. In addition, participants' prior news viewing was assessed. In Study 1, heavy news viewers exposed to unidentified perpetrators were less likely than heavy news viewers exposed to noncrime stories to perceive that Blacks face structural limitations to success. In addition, heavy news viewers exposed to unidentified perpetrators were more likely than heavy news viewers exposed to noncrime stories to support the death penalty. In Study 2, participants exposed to a majority of Black suspects were more likely than participants exposed to noncrime stories to find a subsequent race-unidentified criminal culpable for his offense. In addition, heavy news viewers were more likely to exhibit the above effect than light news viewers. The methodological and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed in light of chronic activation and the priming paradigm. [source] A Broken System: The Persistent Patterns of Reversals of Death Sentences in the United StatesJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2004Andrew Gelman We collected data on the appeals process for all death sentences in U.S. states between 1973 and 1995. The reversal rate was high, with an estimated chance of at least two-thirds that any death sentence would be overturned by a state or federal appeals court. Multilevel regression models fit to the data by state and year indicate that high reversal rates are strongly associated with higher death-sentencing rates and lower rates of apprehending and imprisoning violent offenders. In light of our empirical findings, we discuss potential remedies including "streamlining" the appeals process and restricting the death penalty to the "worst of the worst" offenders. [source] Siting the Death Penalty InternationallyLAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 2 2008David F. Greenberg We examine sources of variation in possession and use of the death penalty using data drawn from 193 nations in order to test theories of punishment. We find the death penalty to be rooted in a country's legal and political systems, and to be influenced by its religious traditions. A country's level of economic development, its educational attainment, and its religious composition shape its political institutions and practices, indirectly affecting its use of the death penalty. The article concludes by discussing likely future trends. [source] Status Disparities in the Capital of Capital PunishmentLAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 4 2009Scott Phillips Numerous studies have examined the influence of victim race on capital punishment, with a smaller number focused on victim gender. But death penalty scholars have largely ignored victim social status. Drawing on Black's (1976) multidimensional theoretical concept, the current research examines the impact of victim social status on the district attorney's decision to seek the death penalty and the jury's decision to impose a death sentence. The data include the population of cases indicted for capital murder in Harris County (Houston), Texas, from 1992 to 1999 (n=504). The findings suggest that victim social status has a robust influence on the ultimate state sanction: Death was more likely to be sought and imposed on behalf of high-status victims who were integrated, sophisticated, conventional, and respectable. The research also has implications beyond capital punishment. Because victim social status has rarely been investigated in the broader sentencing literature, Black's concept provides a theoretical tool that could be used to address such an important omission. [source] The Racial Components of "Race-Neutral" Crime Policy AttitudesPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2002Mark Peffley Past studies have found evidence of a connection between race and crime in the minds of many white Americans, but several gaps remain in our knowledge of this association. Here, a multimethod approach was used to examine more closely the racial component of whites' support for ostensibly race-neutral crime policies. Conventional correlational analysis showed that negative stereotypes of African Americans,specifically, the belief that blacks are violent and lazy,are an important source of support for punitive policies such as the death penalty and longer prison terms. A survey experiment further showed that negative evaluations of black prisoners are much more strongly tied to support for punitive policies than are negative evaluations of white prisoners. These findings suggest that when many whites think of punitive crime policies to deal with violent offenders, they are thinking of black offenders. [source] Death Penalty Resistance in the USTHE HOWARD JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Issue 4 2002J. Robert Lilly In recent years popular support for the death penalty in the US has begun to wane. This article discusses some of the reasons for this development including evidence that innocent individuals have been put to death. Other reasons involve legal debates about executing the mentally retarded, racial disparity and LWOP (Life Without Parole) as an alternative. [source] Securing the German Domestic Front in the Second World War: Prosecution of Subversion before the People's CourtAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 1 2007Steven R. Welch Using a sample of sixty-six cases dealing with defeatist statements tried before the People's Court, this article argues that these subversion cases clearly demonstrate the politicisation of the judicial process under the Nazi regime. The application of an extraordinarily broad interpretation of the term "public", virtually obliterating any notion of a private sphere , as well as a draconian use of the death penalty (two-thirds of defendants were sentenced to death and executed) both provide evidence that the prosecution of subversion can be understood as one component of a broader effort by the Hitler regime to achieve total control over society in pursuit of total war. [source] The impact of death qualification, belief in a just world, legal authoritarianism, and locus of control on venirepersons' evaluations of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in capital trials,BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, Issue 1 2007Brooke Butler Ph.D. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of death qualification, belief in a just world (BJW), legal authoritarianism (RLAQ), and locus of control (LOC) on venirepersons' evaluations of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in capital trials. 212 venirepersons from the 12th Judicial Circuit in Bradenton, FL, completed a booklet that contained the following: one question that measured their attitudes toward the death penalty; one question that categorized their death-qualification status; the BJW, LOC, and RLAQ scales; a summary of the guilt and penalty phases of a capital case; a 26-item measure that required participants to evaluate aggravators, nonstatutory mitigators, and statutory mitigators on a 6-point Likert scale; sentence preference; and standard demographic questions. Results indicated that death-qualified venirepersons were more likely to demonstrate higher endorsements of aggravating factors and lower endorsements of both nonstatutory and statutory mitigating factors. Death-qualified participants were also more likely to have a high belief in a just world, espouse legal authoritarian beliefs, and exhibit an internal locus of control. Findings also suggested that venirepersons with a low belief in a just world and an external locus of control demonstrated higher endorsements of statutory mitigators. Participants with legal authoritarian beliefs revealed higher endorsements of aggravators and lower endorsements of nonstatutory mitigators. Legal implications and applications are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Death penalty support for special offender populations of legally convicted murderers: juveniles, the mentally retarded, and the mentally incompetent,BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, Issue 2 2004Denise Paquette Boots M.A. The U.S. Supreme Court recently re-examined the constitutionality of the death penalty in the context of two of three special offender populations of murderers (juveniles, mentally retarded, and mentally incompetent). The Court reaffirmed the imposition of the death penalty for juveniles 16 and 17, while reversing itself on the mentally retarded. In reaching its decision, the Court relied on society's "evolving standards of decency." Using Likert-type items, this study is the first to have prospective jurors assess support for the death penalty for these specific offender groups. The public's support for the execution of each of the groups is then compared with existing case law. Descriptive statistics and regression analyses indicate that, as expected, the levels of support for the applicability of capital punishment to the various special offender populations are much lower than that for the general adult offender. Moreover, these findings are congruent with the holdings of the Court with one notable exception: a slight majority of respondents supported executing the mentally incompetent. Reasons for the public's apparent departure from the Supreme Court holding prohibiting the execution of mentally incompetent convicted murderers are discussed. The Court's continued role in protecting marginalized populations from "cruel and unusual punishment" is explored in the context of strong public sentiment demanding justice and finality despite changes in offenders' mental capacity. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||||||||