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After The Crime: Rewarding Offenders’ Positive Post-Offense Conduct, Paul H. Robinson, Muhammad Sarahne Jul 2021

After The Crime: Rewarding Offenders’ Positive Post-Offense Conduct, Paul H. Robinson, Muhammad Sarahne

All Faculty Scholarship

While an offender’s conduct before and during the crime is the traditional focus of criminal law and sentencing rules, an examination of post-offense conduct can also be important in promoting criminal justice goals. After the crime, different offenders make different choices and have different experiences, and those differences can suggest appropriately different treatment by judges, correctional officials, probation and parole supervisors, and other decision-makers in the criminal justice system.

Positive post-offense conduct ought to be acknowledged and rewarded, not only to encourage it but also as a matter of fair and just treatment. This essay describes four kinds of positive …


Standing Between The Past And The Future, How Defense Attorneys Use Stigma Management Techniques In Presenting Their Closing Arguments In Capital Sentencing Procedures: A Content Analysis, Abdulrahmane Abdul-Aziz Jan 2021

Standing Between The Past And The Future, How Defense Attorneys Use Stigma Management Techniques In Presenting Their Closing Arguments In Capital Sentencing Procedures: A Content Analysis, Abdulrahmane Abdul-Aziz

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

In the penalty-phase of a capital case, defense attorneys face a difficult task in managing the identity of their now convicted client. They must present a coherent narrative that combats the prosecution’s case and engenders leniency from the jury. The closing argument given by the defense attorney(s) provides a unique opportunity to analyze and understand the general use of stigma management techniques and their applicability to capital cases. Using content analysis, 18 Transcripts from Texas capital cases from 2005 to 2015 were analyzed against the relevant techniques of neutralization (Sykes & Matza, 1957): appeal to a higher loyalty, appeal to …