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Death Sentence (death + sentence)
Selected AbstractsA 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] 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 Measure of Mercy: Islamic Justice, Sovereign Power, and Human Rights in IranCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2006Arzoo Osanloo In January 2000, Iranian government agents hailed a last-minute death sentence reprieve as an expression of Islamic human rights. Officials mobilized a native source of human rights in the invocation of mercy. For some, the proliferation of human rights norms situates a state in the fold of modernity, whereas the "spectacle of the scaffold" suggests a premodern demonstration of sovereign power. Through a study of sovereign power and human rights, this article questions the seemingly clear-cut divide between premodern and modern forms of justice and suggests that contemporary appeals to mercy as human rights should not be dismissed as being outside modern forms of state sovereignty. [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] 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] Alone in the World: The Existential Socrates in the Apology and CritoPOLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2007Emanuele Saccarelli The story of Socrates' life, and in particular the circumstances of his death, has been a nearly obligatory referent for the development of Western political thought. Contemporary political theorists such as Hannah Arendt and, more recently, Gerald Mara and Dana Villa have presented Socrates as a model of political engagement for our times. Against the background of these accounts, I develop an existential interpretation of Socrates as he appears in the Apology and Crito, focusing on the singular, private, experiential and incommunicable character of Socrates' truth. In doing so, I discuss some important and contentious issues in Socratic studies, such as his disavowal of knowledge, his allegiance to the Athenian polis and the apparent tension between his defiance during the trial and his willingness to submit to the resulting death sentence. My interpretation reveals a Socrates that we should not strive to understand, let alone emulate politically, particularly if we wish to respect his own sensibilities. [source] Assessing the "evolving standards of decency:" perceptions of capital punishment for juvenilesBEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, Issue 2 2006Rachel Kalbeitzer M.S. This study examines whether public opinion parallels recent judicial and statutory changes limiting the applicability of capital sentences to offenders younger than 18 years old. Two hundred and thirty-five undergraduate students were administered a vignette of a capital case and asked to render a sentence of death or life in prison without parole. Results revealed that age of the defendant was not a significant predictor of sentence type; participants sentenced 16- and 17-year-old defendants similarly to 18- and 25-year-old defendants. Therefore, public opinion appears inconsistent with legal and legislative changes to abandon the practice of executing juveniles. Findings also suggested that perceived level of the defendant's responsibility and general opinion about capital sentences significantly predicted sentence type; perceptions of greater responsibility were associated with an increased likelihood of a death sentence. However, participants did not perceive differences in responsibility between juvenile and adult defendants. In addition, participants were more comfortable sentencing defendants to death compared with life in prison. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [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] 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] | ||||||||||||||||