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Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Reimagining The Death Penalty: Targeting Christians, Conservatives, Spearit
Reimagining The Death Penalty: Targeting Christians, Conservatives, Spearit
Articles
This Article is an interdisciplinary response to an entrenched legal and cultural problem. It incorporates legal analysis, religious study and the anthropological notion of “culture work” to consider death penalty abolitionism and prospects for abolishing the death penalty in the United States. The Article argues that abolitionists must reimagine their audiences and repackage their message for broader social consumption, particularly for Christian and conservative audiences. Even though abolitionists are characterized by some as “bleeding heart” liberals, this is not an accurate portrayal of how the death penalty maps across the political spectrum. Abolitionists must learn that conservatives are potential allies …
The Death Penalty: The Law Lords Alter Course In The Commonwealth Caribbean, Harold A. Young J.D./Llb, Phd
The Death Penalty: The Law Lords Alter Course In The Commonwealth Caribbean, Harold A. Young J.D./Llb, Phd
Journal of International and Global Studies
This article is a critical examination of the decisions of the Judicial Council of the Privy Council (JCPC) in death penalty appeals from the Commonwealth Caribbean from 1966 to 2008. It contributes to our understanding of how court rulings may be influenced by specific aspects of the judicial environment, which is shaped by the majority party in parliament, whose prime minister selects judges and which may make substantive changes in the law. In a quantitative examination of death penalty appeals, I find an increased likelihood that the court will set aside the death penalty when the judicial environment changes.
Mourners In The Court: Victims In Death Penalty Trials, Through The Lens Of Performance, Sarah Beth Kaufman
Mourners In The Court: Victims In Death Penalty Trials, Through The Lens Of Performance, Sarah Beth Kaufman
Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research
This article presents findings from ethnographic research in death penalty trials around the United States, focusing on the role of victims and their supporters. Victim impact testimony (VIT) in death penalty sentencing has received intense legal scrutiny during the past thirty years. The ruling jurisprudence allows VIT with the explanation that it deserves parity with testimony about the defendant's background. Drawing on observations and interviews with participants in 15 death penalty trials, I demonstrate that this framing confuses the central role of victim supporters in the courtroom. Victim supporters function as mourners, which grants them a socially elevated position in …
Citizenship And Punishment: Situating Death Penalty Jury Sentencing, Sarah Beth Kaufman
Citizenship And Punishment: Situating Death Penalty Jury Sentencing, Sarah Beth Kaufman
Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research
Although capital punishment in the United States is subject to much social scientific scrutiny, there has been little ethnographic study of death penalty trials. This is not only an empirical lacuna, but also a theoretically and politically important one: by failing to take capital trials as primary objects of inquiry, the practices of lawyers, witnesses, judges, and others are viewed as products of, rather than implicated in, the institution of criminal justice. Based on an ethnography of fifteen death penalty sentencing trials across the United States during 2007, 2008, and 2009, this article seeks to understand the role of juries …