Flawed Logic for Death Penalty Abolition: An Analysis of Unrequited Innocence in U.S. Capital Cases

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Conklin
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Cases

Capital Punishment, Retribution, and Emotion

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-290
Author(s):  
Anthony Walsh ◽  
Virginia L. Hatch
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Imaging Techniques ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Group Stability ◽  
Normal People ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Almost All

This article explores the emotions behind the retributive urge as it applies to the death penalty in the United States. It is argued that the retributive urge is so strong because it engages the most primitive of our emotions, and that these emotions served adaptive purposes over the course of human evolution. Many scholars offended by the retributive instinct insist that we must put emotions aside when discussing the death penalty, even as jurors in death penalty cases, and rely on our rationality. To ask this is to ask what almost all normal people find impossible because the emotions evoked in capital cases (disgust, anger, sympathy for the victim, desire for justice) evolved for the purpose of maintaining group stability and survival by punishing freeloaders. Modern neuroscience has destroyed the traditional notion that rationality and emotion are antagonists. Brain imaging techniques show that they are fully integrated in our brain wiring, and both are engaged in decision making, but when reason and emotion yield conflicting judgments, the latter almost always triumphs. The evolutionary rationales for why emotions conducive to punitive responses for wrongdoers exist are examined.

Intellectual Disability, Criminal Justice, and the Death Penalty

2020 ◽  
pp. 172-183
Author(s):  
Cliff Sloan ◽  
Lauryn Fraas
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Adaptive Behavior ◽  
Current Medical ◽  
Medical Standards ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Social Work Practitioners ◽  
Iq Scores ◽  
Standard Error Of Measurement ◽  
The U.S

This chapter introduces the reader to key cases analyzing claims of intellectual disability, describes the current clinical definition and diagnosis, and provides an overview of recurring issues in capital litigation. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individuals with intellectual disability may not be executed. The Court subsequently clarified that current medical standards must be used in assessing claims of intellectual disability in capital cases. The clinical diagnosis requires assessing three factors: (a) deficits in intellectual functioning; (b) deficits in adaptive behavior; and (c) the onset of deficits during the developmental period. Courts must be informed by current medical standards regarding issues that arise, including the standard error of measurement in IQ scores, the problems of offsetting weaknesses in adaptive behavior with perceived strengths, and other clinical topics. The principle that the death penalty must not be imposed on individuals with intellectual disability signals important responsibilities for social work practitioners.

Federation of Malaysia

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-158
Author(s):  
Daniel Pascoe
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
The State ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Explanatory Factors ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

As with Chapters 3 and 4, the case study on Malaysia begins with a thorough description of the country’s death penalty laws and practice, and Malaysia’s publicly known clemency practice over the period under analysis (1991–2016). Thereafter, for both the Malaysian (Chapter 5) and Indonesian (Chapter 6) cases, the potential explanatory factors for clemency incidence are more complex than for Thailand and Singapore, given these two jurisdictions’ more moderate rates of capital clemency and fluctuating political policies on capital punishment over time. Available statistics suggest that Malaysia’s clemency rate is moderately high, at between 55 and 63 per cent of finalized capital cases. Malaysia is a federal state where pardons are granted by the hereditary rulers or appointed state governors in state-based cases, or by the Malaysian king (Yang di-Pertuan Agong) in federal and security cases, all on the advice of specially constituted Pardons Boards. Chapter 5 presents the following two explanations for Malaysia’s restrictions on death penalty clemency: prosecutorial/judicial discretion and detention without trial in capital cases, and the Federal Attorney-General’s constitutional role on the State and Federal Pardons Boards. As to why Malaysia’s clemency rate has not then fallen to the miniscule level seen in neighbouring Singapore (with both nations closely comparable, as they were once part of the same Federation of Malaya), Chapter 5 points to the relevant paperwork placed before each Pardons Board, the merciful role played by the Malay monarchy, and the impact of excessively long stays on death row before clemency decisions are reached.

Assessing Juror Understanding of Capital-Sentencing Instructions

1998 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 412-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Frank ◽  
Brandon K. Applegate
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Sentencing ◽  
Legal Policy ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Jury Duty ◽  
State Death ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Midwestern City

Although recent research has suggested that juror understanding of sentencing instructions in capital cases is limited, jurors in most states retain responsibility for determining whether a defendant receives the death penalty. Using data collected from 258 individuals who were called for jury duty in a midwestern city, the present study demonstrates that (1) jurors' comprehension of sentencing instructions is limited, (2) the particular areas of misunderstanding tend to place the defendant at a disadvantage, (3) juror understanding can be improved by rewriting state death penalty pattern instructions, and (4) comprehension levels also may be increased by providing jurors with a written copy of the instructions. Unfortunately, the effects that this research may have on legal policy are unclear.

Death Penalty Disposition in China: What Matters?

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yudu Li ◽  
Dennis Longmire ◽  
Hong Lu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Sentencing Decisions ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Using Data

In theory, sentencing decisions should be driven by legal factors, not extra-legal factors. However, some empirical research on the death penalty in the United States shows significant relationships between offender and victim characteristics and death sentence decisions. Despite the fact that China frequently imposes death sentences, few studies have examined these sanctions to see if similar correlations occur in China’s capital cases. Using data from published court cases in China involving three violent crimes—homicide, robbery, and intentional assault—this study examines the net impact of offender’s gender, race, and victim–offender relationship on death sentence decisions in China. Our overall multiple regression results indicate that, after controlling for other legal and extra-legal variables, an offender’s gender, race, and victim–offender relationship did not produce similar results in China when compared with those in the United States. In contrast, it is the legal factors that played the most significant role in influencing the death penalty decisions. The article concludes with explanations and speculations on the unique social, cultural, and legal conditions in China that may have contributed to these correlations.

scholarly journals The Death Penalty: Should the Judge or the Jury Decide Who Dies?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie P. Hans ◽  
John H. Blume ◽  
Amelia C. Hritz ◽  
Sheri Lynn Johnson ◽  
Caisa E. Royer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Capital Trials ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Jury Decision

12 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 70-99 (2015)This article addresses the effect of judge versus jury decision making through analysis of a database of all capital sentencing phase hearing trials in the State of Delaware from 1977– 2007. Over the three decades of the study, Delaware shifted responsibility for death penalty sentencing from the jury to the judge. Currently, Delaware is one of the handful of states that gives the judge the final decision-making authority in capital trials. Controlling for a number of legally relevant and other predictor variables, we find that the shift to judge sentencing significantly increased the number of death sentences. Statutory aggravating factors, stranger homicides, and the victim’s gender also increased the likelihood of a death sentence, as did the county of the homicide. We reflect on the implications of these results for debates about the constitutionality of judge sentencing in capital cases.

scholarly journals If It Walks Like Systematic Exclusion and Quacks Like Systematic Exclusion: Follow-Up on Removal of Women and African-Americans in Jury Selection in South Carolina Capital Cases, 1997-2014

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann M. Eisenberg ◽  
Amelia C. Hritz ◽  
Caisa E. Royer ◽  
John H. Blume
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Jury Selection ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Combined Effects ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Two Stages

68 South Carolina Law Review 373 (2017)This Article builds on an earlier study analyzing bases and rates of removal of women and African-American jurors in a set of South Carolina capital cases decided between 1997 and 2012. We examine and assess additional data from new perspectives in order to establish a more robust, statistically strengthened response to the original research question: whether, and if so, why, prospective women and African-American jurors were disproportionately removed in different stages of jury selection in a set of South Carolina capital cases.The study and the article it builds on add to decades of empirical research exploring the impacts (or lack thereof) of Batson and related jurisprudence on jury selection practices. The findings from the earlier study persisted with the stronger dataset in this study and are consistent with many previous studies’ findings indicating that capital jury selection procedures serve to systematically siphon off women and African-Americans through the death-qualification process and peremptory strikes.Key findings in the earlier study included that the prosecution struck 35% of strike-eligible black potential jurors, accounting for removing 15% of black venire members; that approximately 32% of black venire members were removed for opposition to the death penalty; and that the combined effects of these two stages prevented a total of 47% of black venire members from serving, compared to those stages preventing a combined 16% of the white venire pool from serving. Those findings have for the most part persisted with the stronger dataset here, with slight variations. Here, the prosecution struck 29% of strike-eligible black potential jurors (the average of a 33% strike rate for black men and 25% for black women), accounting for removing 13% of black venire members; approximately 24% of black venire members were removed for opposition to the death penalty; and the combined effects of these two stages prevented a total of 42% of black venire members from serving. This is compared to the prosecution striking 12.5% of strike-eligible white potential jurors, which equates to about 7% of the overall white venire pool; and 6.2% of white potential jurors being removed for anti-death views, with the two stages preventing, combined, an approximate 13% of white venire members from serving.

The American Death Penalty

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-390
Author(s):  
Carol S. Steiker ◽  
Jordan M. Steiker
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Juvenile Offenders ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Defense Counsel ◽  
System A ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Process

The Supreme Court’s constitutional regulation of the American death penalty has yielded a plethora of doctrines that have shaped an alternative criminal justice process that is (mostly) limited to capital cases. Many of these doctrines offer a vision and practice of “roads not taken” in the ordinary criminal justice process that would be attractive improvements in that larger system. We consider three of these doctrines: (1) more searching review of the proportionality of sentencing outcomes; (2) imposition of a requirement of individualized sentencing that has led to the investigation and presentation of in-depth evidence in mitigation; and (3) greater regulation of the adequacy of defense counsel that has moved closer to a “checklist” model of mandated practices. Each of these doctrines was born and developed under the Court’s “death is different” regime of constitutional regulation, and each of them has to some limited extent moved beyond the strictly capital context into the broader criminal justice process. We explain how these alternative models present attractive improvements for the broader noncapital system—a view that casts the Court’s regulation of the American death penalty as a progressive laboratory that can yield alternative, more protective, and more idealized processes for the ordinary criminal justice system. Yet we also caution that the “differentness” of death—and of juvenile offenders, the noncapital context to which the Court is most likely to import its death penalty innovations—can also serve to normalize and entrench the less protective, less idealized practices that exist outside of these realms.

The Relationship between Attitudes toward Capital Punishment and Assignment of the Death Penalty

1974 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 415-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Stricker ◽  
George L. Jurow
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Questionnaires concerning attitude toward capital punishment, liberalism-conservatism, and the assignment of penalties in 13 capital cases were administered to 190 college students. All scales correlated significantly with each other, with Ss who were opposed to capital punishment less likely to assign the death penalty in specific cases. Factor analysis showed separate factors for murderers, assassins, attitudes and demographic data. The relationship of these findings to the Witherspoon case is discussed.

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