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Both sides of the highly charged capital punishment debate in the United States are examined in this breakthrough collection of 112 key documents, arranged by historical period. The political and social aspects of the debate are represented through a wide range of documents, including congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, position papers, biographical accounts, and news stories. An explanatory introduction precedes each document to help readers understand how various and seemingly unrelated social, economic, and political factors have impacted public attitudes, legislation, and judicial decisions pertaining to capital punishment. ... Read more

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HISTORICAL PERSECTIVE
This book by Vila and Morris provides a uniquely impartial look at capital punishment in the USA through the words of the people who have most influenced the evolution of the debate during the past 3.5 centuries; and the editors use excerpts from more than 100 original source documents to accomplish this mission.Instead of telling us what to believe, they help us to develop our own opinions by providing these excerpts covering a variety of perspectives, and desribing the political, social, and economic context in which the documents were recorded. We find that the volume is divided into six chapters - each covering a different era in the evolution of the death penalty debate.I found that there was a balanced selection of documents from a myriad of perspectives, and the materials were presented in a non-adversarial way. I enjoyed the book immensely. Who can use this book?First of all, political and human rights activists like myself, and of course, researchers, students, educators, speechwriters, members of the Criminal Justice System, prisoners, and concerned citizens.The book is well worth "a read" over several evenings, and will make us more aware of the highly charged issues dealing with capital punishment. ... Read more

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An up-to-date examination of legal changes and shifting attitudes surrounding capital punishment
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Discusses capital punishment, analyzing how it affects those condemned to die, those who have been victimized, our society, and the enforcers. ... Read more

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"Juanita Q. Smith (MCJ New Mexico State 2010) has
written a thesis analyzing the use and misuse of California’s
pre-Furman death penalty (1778-1945). She is currently
employed with Families and Youth, Inc. in Las Cruces,
New Mexico before continuing doctoral studies specializing
in capital punishment, ethnic and cultural studies."
... Read more

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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 will 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 promises to be of interest as well to policymakers and practitioners. It will be published 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. ... Read more

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Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, Western societies abandoned public executions in favor of private punishments, primarily confinement in penitentiaries and private executions.The transition, guided by a reconceptualization of the causes of crime, the nature of authority, and the purposes of punishment, embodied the triumph of new sensibilities and the reconstitution of cultural values throughout the Western world.This study examines the conflict over capital punishment in the United States and the way it transformed American culture between the Revolution and the Civil War. Relating the gradual shift in rituals of punishment and attitudes toward discipline to the emergence of a middle class culture that valued internal restraints and private punishments, Masur traces the changing configuration of American criminal justice.He examines the design of execution day in the Revolutionary era as a spectacle of civil and religious order, the origins of organized opposition to the death penalty and the invention of the penitentiary, the creation of private executions, reform organizations' commitment to social activism, and the competing visions of humanity and society lodged at the core of the debate over capital punishment. A fascinating and thoughtful look at a topic that remains of burning interest today, Rites of Execution will attract a wide range of scholarly and general readers. ... Read more

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An indispensable reference and research tool for capital punishment scholars, this work compiles for the first time in one volume significant recent articles, book reviews, documents, and statistics dealing with the death penalty and its abolition.Drawing on a wide range of international sources, the compendium offers a wealth of previously inaccessible information on recent worldwide developments in capital punishment studies and litigation, and provides the most thorough collection of statistical data on the subject. ... Read more

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The death penalty is not simply the most serious criminal punishment. It has been a singular social, legal, and moral problem in the Western world over the past two hundred years. Capital punishment is disappearing from every nation in the West except the United States. No political science of capital punishment in the United States has been attempted until this book. Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins offer a redefinition of the central political and legal issues and a re-examination of the whole subject in the light of the social, political, and moral conditions of the United States in the 1980s. Lawyers, criminologists, political scientists, and motivated general readers will find the profile of a United States pursuing an active execution policy in the 1980s and 1990s to be an original and compelling contribution to the discussion of the future of the death penalty. Zimring and Hawkins's prediction for future policy, while based on historical precedent, is in sharp contrast to conventional wisdom about the United States Supreme Court. This book was first published in 1986. ... Read more

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Good Work here!
Zimring's work is superb and this book, published in the 1980s has some staying power. Frank makes some interesting predictions, the one most prominent right now is his statement that capital punishment would not be abolished because of racism or the conviction of innocents. He was right. It took a major recession to convince lawmakers in New Mexico that something needed to be done. A sad comment on Americans I think. As for Zimring himself, he remains the sort of guy one admires from a distance. He is ill-tempered, rude, and as confrontational as his book is brilliant. ... Read more

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This short-term study comes at a time when there is considerable national debate and commentary on the administration of the death penalty. This study combines Bible study with compelling stories from persons who have been directly affected by capital crimes to help adults form and/or reform their thinking on capital punishment. It looks at various denominational views and nations' policies related to the issue, as well as providing several suggested plans for actions.

Chapters include:
-- What is the death penalty?
-- What does the Bible say?

What do we learn from the history of Christianity?

What guidance do our theological and ethical traditions provide? ... Read more

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Over 7,000 people have been legally executed in the United States this century, and over 3,000 men and women now sit on death rows across the country awaiting the same fate. Since the Supreme Court temporarily halted capital punishment in 1972, the death penalty has returned with a vengeance. Today there appears to be a widespread public consensus in favor of capital punishment and considerable political momentum to ensure that those sentenced to death are actually executed. Yet the death penalty remains troubling and controversial for many people. The Killing State: Capital Punishment in Law, Politics, and Culture explores what it means when the state kills and what it means for citizens to live in a killing state, helping us understand why America clings tenaciously to a punishment that has been abandoned by every other industrialized democracy.

Edited by a leading figure in socio-legal studies, this book brings together the work of ten scholars, including recognized experts on the death penalty and noted scholars writing about it for the first time. Focused more on theory than on advocacy, these bracing essays open up new questions for scholars and citizens: What is the relationship of the death penalty to the maintenance of political sovereignty? In what ways does the death penalty resemble and enable other forms of law's violence? How is capital punishment portrayed in popular culture? How does capital punishment express the new politics of crime, organize positions in the "culture war," and affect the structure of American values? This book is a timely examination of a vitally important topic: the impact of state killing on our law, our politics, and our cultural life. ... Read more

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"The death penalty is one of the most contentious issues of our time and has generated an astonishing amount of arguments both for and against capital punishment. Out of this debate, Martinez, Richardson, and Hornsby have crafted the broadest and most balanced account to date. The Leviathan's Choice: Capital Punishment in the Twenty-First Century explores the death penalty from four distinct perspectives--philosophical, theological, social science, and legal--and includes scholarly essays on both sides of the debate. An ideal reader for students and policy makers, The Leviathan's Choice is essential for everyone following the arguments surrounding the death penalty" ... Read more

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Electrifying
This book was very educational--and written in a very thoughtful and thought provoking manner.Mr. Martinez is a polished author and he explains the complexities surrounding the death penalty in several accessible essays. ... Read more

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The Supreme Court has looked to "evolving standards of decency" in determining whether the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Evolving Standards of Decency examines the ways in which popular culture portrays the death penalty. By analyzing literature and film, Atwell argues that capital punishment becomes much more complex when both offenders and victims are presented as fully developed individuals. Numerous books and films from the last several decades expose flaws in the criminal justice system and provide audiences with stories that raise questions about race, class, and actual innocence in the administration of the ultimate punishment. Although most people will not read legal briefs supporting or challenging the death penalty, many will see films or read novels that raise issues about its fairness. Themes and images gathered through popular culture may ultimately influence whether Americans continue to believe that capital punishment conforms to their evolving standards of decency and justice. Those studying justice issues, corrections, or capital punishment will find this an accessible and provocative work that places the stories read in novels or seen in movies in the context of the legal system that has the power of life and death. ... Read more

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From Noose to Needle contributes a new perspective on the controversial topic of capital punishment by asking how the conduct of state killing reveals broader contradictions in the contemporary liberal state, especially, but not exclusively, in the United States. Moving beyond more familiar legal and sociological approaches to this matter, Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn asks several questions. Why do executions no longer take the form of public spectacles? Why are certain methods of execution considered barbaric? Why must the liberal state strictly segregate the imposition of a death sentence, whether by judge or jury, from its actual infliction, whether by a state official or an ordinary citizen? Why are women so infrequently sentenced to death and executed? How does the state seek to hide the suffering inflicted by capital punishment through its endorsement of a bio-medical conception of pain? How does the nearly-universal shift to lethal injection pose problems for the late liberal state by confusing its punitive and welfare responsibilities?
Drawing on a wide range of theoretical sources, including John Locke, Max Weber, Nicos Poulantzas, Friedrich Nietzsche, J. L. Austin, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Pierre Bourdieu, Elaine Scarry, and others, Kaufman-Osborn grounds his appropriation of these authors in analyses of specific recent executions, including that of Wesley Allan Dodd and Charles Campbell in Washington, Karla Faye Tucker in Texas, and Allen Lee Davis in Florida.
From Noose to Needle will be of interest to students of law, political theory, and sociology as well as more general readers interested in the troublesome issue of capital punishment.
Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn is Baker Ferguson Professor of Politics and Leadership, Whitman College.
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"Hanging in the Balance" traces the history of capital punishment in the United Kingdom from ancient times to the modern day - through periods of reform until hanging for murder was finally abolished by Parliament in 1969. It describes in detail the Parliamentary and public debates, and notes the stance taken by organizations and individuals (including the tenacious and persistent Sydney Silverman MP). The book collates data and references not previously brought together in one place-and in exploring the underlying issues and the recurring arguments about deterrence, retribution and expediency it provides an invaluable resource vis-a-vis the same debate in the many countries where capital punishment still exists.Lord Callaghan was home secretary at the time of abolition. His 'Foreword' conveys how strong his personal feelings were concerning the death penalty from the time he entered Parliament in 1945. The book's closing chapters record how his insistence that abolition should become permanent ultimately overcame the still considerable opposition. Capital punishment was finally abolished in 1999 throughout the UK.For all practical purposes this had already happened in 1969 when the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 was made fully effective into following a trial period. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more