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The death penalty : America's experience with capital punishment / Raymond Paternoster, Robert Brame, Sarah Bacon ; foreword by Stephen B. Bright.
Van Pelt Library HV8699.U5 P373 2008
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Paternoster, Raymond.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Capital punishment--United States.
- Capital punishment.
- Capital punishment--United States--History.
- United States.
- Genre:
- Handbooks and manuals.
- History.
- Physical Description:
- xviii, 314 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.
- Summary:
- Paternoster et al. present a balanced perspective that focuses on both the arguments for and against capital punishment. Coverage draws on legal, historical, philosophical, economic, sociological, and religious points of view.
- Contents:
- pt. I. The enduring legacy of capital punishment in the United States
- Introduction
- 1. Capital punishment in the early period : 1608-1929
- Capital crimes and capital statutes in the early period
- Characteristics of executions in the early period
- Changes in the practice of the death penalty in the early period
- Methods of execution in the early period
- Location of the death penalty in the early period
- Chapter summary
- Discussion questions
- Student resources
- Endnotes
- 2. Capital punishment in the premodern period : 1930-1967
- Capital crimes and capital statutes in the premodern period
- Characteristics of executions in the premodern period
- Methods of execution in the premodern period
- Location of the death penalty in the premodern period
- 3. Capital punishment in the modern period : 1976-present
- Capital crimes and capital statutes in the modern period
- Characteristics of executions in the modern period
- Methods of execution in the modern period
- Location of the death penalty in the modern period
- Changes in the practice of the death penalty in the modern period
- The federal and military death penalty
- Endnotes.
- pt. II. Legal history, constitutional requirements, and common justifications for capital punishment in the United States
- 4. A brief legal history of capital punishment in the United States
- Early constitutional challenges to the method of imposing death
- Constitutional theories about what the Eighth Amendment prohibits
- A definition of 'cruel and unusual'
- The death penalty's decline in popularity and challenges to its constitutionality, the prelude to McGautha v. California
- The death penalty is not procedurally flawed, the case of McGautha v. California
- The death penalty as currently administered is so procedurally flawed that it constitutes 'cruel and unusual punishment, ' the case of Furman v. Georgia
- 5. Constitutional requirements for capital punishment in the United States
- The response to Furman : mandatory and guided discretion capital statutes
- The execution of special groups, the retarded, the young, and the mentally ill
- The death penalty for the mentally retarded
- The death penalty for juveniles
- The death penalty for the mentally ill
- 6. Common justifications for the death penalty
- Retribution : the moral argument for the death penalty
- Kantian retribution
- Berns' argument
- Van den Haag's argument
- Other retributivist views
- Some examples
- Cost : the financial argument for the death penalty
- Incapacitation : one of the public safety arguments for the death penalty
- General deterrence : the other public safety argument for the death penalty
- Sellin's research
- Ehrlich's strategy
- Other researchers
- Religious positions for and against the death penalty
- pt. III. The administration of the death penalty : issues of race and human fallability
- 7. Race, the law, and punishment
- The peculiar institution
- The slave codes
- Criminal codes
- Race and legal institutions after the Civil War
- The Black codes
- Radical reconstruction
- Jim Crow laws
- Disenfranchisement
- Violence against Blacks
- 8. Race and capital punishment
- Race and capital punishment : 1930-1967
- The indictment and charging decision
- The conviction and sentencing decision
- The commutation decision
- Evidence of racially disparate treatment in the courts
- Race and capital punishment, 1976 to the present
- Post-Furman evidence of racial discrimination in capital sentencing before the courts, McCleskey v. Kemp
- 9. Problems in administering the death penalty
- The possibly innocent
- The Carlos DeLuna case
- The Joseph O'Dell case
- The Gary Graham case
- The exonerated
- Gary Gauger
- Anthony Porter
- Frank Lee Smith
- Kirk Bloodsworth
- Rolando Cruz
- Ryan Matthews
- A 'broken system'
- Ineffective or incompetent defense counsel
- Prosecutor and law enforcement misconduct
- Jail house snitches and 'junk science'
- pt. IV. What's to come of the death penalty
- 10. Capital punishment in America's future
- Public support for the death penalty in the United States
- The death penalty in other countries
- Predictions about the future of the death penalty in America
- What about life without the possibility of parole?
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 282-295) and indexes.
- Other Format:
- Online version: Paternoster, Raymond. Death penalty.
- ISBN:
- 9780195332421
- 0195332423
- 9781933220147
- 1933220147
- OCLC:
- 173846528
- Publisher Number:
- 99993274691
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