Capital Punishment - Annotated Bibliography Example

?Annotated Bibliography Sample Brettschneider, Corey. The Rights of the Guilty: Punishment and Political Legitimacy. Pollitical Theory. 35.2 (Apriil 2007): 175-199. Print. The paper by Brettschneider focuses on the nature of punishment, not as it relates to the offender, but how it relates to the public. Much of the rhetoric on punishment focuses on the offender, putting his or her experience at the center of the debate. This paper locates the nature of the discussion within the discourse of the relationship that it has with the public. The relationship that the state has to the public serves as the focus of how the punishment serves the public and the nature of the debt that is being paid. The center of how this creates a dialogue about the legality of capital punishment is through the understanding that an offender is part of the public that must be served through the court system. Brettschneider states that “I argue that the liberal principle of legitimacy implicitly requires states to respect the basic political rights of those who are guilty of committing crimes, thus prohibiting capital punishment” (175). Cunningham, Mark Douglas ad Jon R. Sorensen. Capital Offenders in Texas Prisons: Rates, Correlates, and an Actuarial Analysis of Violent Misconduct. Law and Human Behavior. 31.6 (December 2007): 553-571. Print. The nature of capital offenders in Texas prisoners and the results of their activities are examined within this paper. The violent tendencies that exist within the prison systems is refocused on the violence that is committed by capital offenders. One of the limitations of the study is that violence in general is more prevalent in early time periods of incarceration, therefore suggesting that since some offenders have limited time periods of incarceration before the death sentence is carried out, this can cause some problems in the data. Regardless, the study shows that violence of capital offenders in Texas prison systems is high and has relationships to age and type of offense. The data is not conclusive, but does have some insight into the nature of offenders who are sentenced on capital crimes. Geraghty, Thomas F. Review: Trying to Understand America’s Death Penalty System and Why We Still Have it. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 94.1 (Autumn 2003): 175-199. This paper reviews three books that discuss the death penalty from various points of view. The opinions are weighed against one another and considered for their validity. The books reviewed are as follows: Franklin Zimring, in The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment, The collected essays in Beyond Repair? America's Death Penalty and Professor Joan Jacobs Brumberg's Kansas Charley: The Story of a 19th Century Boy Murderer. Through looking at the topic through three different concepts of moral and ethical review, the author of the paper comes to the conclusion that the opinions about the topic are based upon the locus of the nature of the opinion. However, one of the conclusions that is drawn is that whichever side the book supports, it does not seem to recognize much in the validity of the opposing opinion. This unfortunate circumstance suggests that a balanced debate is not found in any of the books. Hessing, Dick J., Jan W. de Keijser, and Henk Effers. Explaining Capital Punishment Support in an Abolitionist Country: The Case of the Netherlands. Law and Human Behavior. 27.6 (December 2003): 605-622. Print. Through looking at those who support capital punishment in a country that has a history of being against the death penalty, the support that has been seen in the United States for the death penalty can be seen from a new perspective. Even in a country that has no death penalty and is steeped in abolitionist rhetoric about the issue, 35% of the population is in support of capital punishment. Through hierarchal logistic regression analysis, attitudes about the death penalty are evaluated for the perspective of participants. The authors discover that it is the young and the poor that are most in support of the death penalty. This comes from a position of dissatisfaction with the elite of the nation who control the direction of public opinion. It is concluded that support of the death penalty is more a commentary on a lack of support for the upper classes and those in political power. Lakshman, Ananth and Sarayu Natarajan. Capital Punishment: The Question of ‘Delay’. Economic and Political Weekly. 39.38 (September 18-24, 2004): 4216- 4217. Print. In this commentary, the authors discuss the nature of the long delay that creates an inhumane gap between the time of the sentence and the time that the sentence is carried out. The discussion centers on a court case brought before the Supreme Court of India in which the defendant alleged that because it had been eight years since the time of his sentencing to death, the inhumane nature of that wait and the stress that it caused provided for a cause for commuting that sentence to life in prison. The verdict set a precedent in which anyone who has been on death row for more than two years was automatically provided a commuted sentence from death to life in prison, even if it was the appeals process and the actions of the defendant that created the gap. The provision creates an extended argument against the death penalty, from which the commentary suggests that support of the decision allows for sentencing to be almost rendered moot. Marzilli, Alan. Capital Punishment. New York: Chelsea House, 2008. Print. Alan Marzilli, M.A., J. D. has put together a grouping of writings that discuss the issue of capital punishment. The book provides insight into the various opinions on the topic in order to create a balanced argument for and against the topic. This is considered part of a point/counterpoint series of inquiries into social topics of criminal justice. The book begins with a definition of capital punishment and a history of the punishment from within the United States. A discussion is made about the European laws about capital punishment and the point is made that the United States is the last Western nation and the only ‘super power’ to still have the death penalty. After the introduction is concluded, a shift from one point made by a scholar is then countered by the opinion of another scholar through inclusion of articles from those academically focused writers. Miller, Monica K. and Brian H. Bornstein. The Use of Religion in Death Penalty Sentencing Trials. Law and Human Behavior. 30.6 (December 2006): 675-684. Print. This piece discusses the place that religion holds in the discourse about the death penalty. The use of religious arguments and leaders during sentencing has become a regular use of the clergy in regard to the mercy that society has the opportunity to show to the offender. An example is used from the Susan Smith trial where the story of the adulterous woman who was being threatened with stones by the people of her community was used to show the mercy of Jesus as he asked them to only throw stones if they had no sin within their souls. This type of strategy is used to appeal to the hearts of the jurors and to create a sympathetic rhetoric to influence the direction of the vote. It is not based on evidence or fact, but on the idea that within compassion a sense of mercy can be found. Radelet, Michael L. and Marian J. Borg. The Changing Nature of Death Penalty Debates. Annual Review of Sociology. 26 (2000): 43-61. Print. This analysis of the death penalty discusses the many issues that has surrounded the topic in the last quarter of the 20th century and asserts that sociology is providing a new context from which to discuss the topic. In 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court found that all but a few statutes where capital punishment was concerned were invalid under the constitution, making the death penalty illegal within the United States. This took 633 inmates out of death row. It took only four years, however, to reverse this decision and the death penalty was back on the table as a form of punitive measure against offenders. The review goes over all of the issues that effect capital punishment and the authors come to the conclusion that the sociological sciences are the disciplines from which conclusions about the realities of the topic will be discovered fro answers Sigler, Mary. The Story of Justice: Retribution, Mercy, and the Role of Emotions in the Capital Sentencing Process. Law and Philosophy. 19.3 (May 2000). 339- 367. Print. This work looks at the emotional side of the death penalty. Through looking at Mary Nussbaum’s ideas on mercy in her essay “Equity and Mercy”, the author looks at mercy through many social positions. Retribution is rejected as a form that creates a we/them dynamic, where the truth is that all people, those in the legal system and the defendants all are fallible, the degree of flaws and the consequences of opportunities the only things standing between them. In discounting the emotional context of a trial, Nussbaum thinks a great flaw is occurring in the justice system. Especially in capital cases, the emotions of all of the participants is vital in creating a well rounded end to the case. Without the emotions of the case, the issue would not have been a capital case to begin with, thus the concept of emotions should not be denied from the process in order to maintain a sense of mercy. Zimring, Franklin E. and David T. Johnson. Public Opinion and the Governance of Punishment in Democratic Political Systems. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 605 (May 2006): 266-280. Print. Public opinion, within a democratic society, holds a great deal of weight. Franklin Zimring, William Simon Professor of Law and director of the Criminal Justice Research Program at the University of California, Berkley and David Johnson, associate professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii, discuss how public opinion affects the way in which justice is administered in a democratic society. The article that they have written suggests that a shift occurred in the 1970s that has changed the way in which public punishment is given out. While Americans have always had harsh attitudes towards criminals, it was not until the 1970s when that shift concluded in harsher sentencing and appreciated increases in the number of prisoners in the United States. One of the problems that they find with the topic of punishment in the United States is that it is not discussed enough in the academic discourse on the topic. The second problem that they explore is that there is an assumption that public opinion is the cause of harsher punishments in the legal system, but there is no real evidence that has been brought to light of this correlations. The determining data was constructed of an examination of relevant literature. The conclusion drawn was the following: “The combination of higher salience and distrust of government increased punishment directly and produced structural changes in sentencing that made punishments even harsher“ (Zimring and Johnson 278). Read More