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Full-Text Articles in Law

As Seen On Screen: American Ambivalence Shown Through Death Penalty And Vigilante Films, Lisette Donewald May 2022

As Seen On Screen: American Ambivalence Shown Through Death Penalty And Vigilante Films, Lisette Donewald

Honors Scholar Theses

The United States is one of the last western nations still practicing capital punishment. A history of and commitment to vigilantism and its ideals offers an explanation of America’s retention of capital punishment. Employing scholarship on law and popular culture and vigilantism, this thesis finds that pro-death penalty frames are prevalent in vigilante films while anti-death penalty frames are prevalent in films that focus specifically upon capital punishment. Since the 1960’s however, there has been a gradual shift towards anti-death penalty frames and away from pro-death penalty frames as well as changes in the themes presented in the two genres …


Sister Helen Prejean And The Death Penalty: Decades Of Fighting Capital Punishment, University Marketing And Communications, Helen Prejean May 2020

Sister Helen Prejean And The Death Penalty: Decades Of Fighting Capital Punishment, University Marketing And Communications, Helen Prejean

DePaul Download

Sister Helen Prejean has dedicated her life to opposing the death penalty after she witnessed an execution in her home state of Louisiana. Her efforts have sparked a national dialogue on capital punishment and she has helped shape the Catholic Church’s position on the topic. In 2011, she donated her personal archives to the university to help the DePaul community continue to learn from her work. On this episode of DePaul Download, Sister Helen talks about life’s work and what keeps her going.


The Political Development Of Capital Punishment In The Modern Moroccan State, Mia Barr Apr 2020

The Political Development Of Capital Punishment In The Modern Moroccan State, Mia Barr

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The modern Moroccan state seen today is very young. Having only been independent from France since 1956, the country has spent the last sixty-four years crafting its post-colonial statehood. What has emerged is a hybrid political system with powers split, however unequally, between the King and his inner circle, known as the makhzen, and the Parliament. Not only is the monarchy constitutional—meaning that its legitimacy is literally written into the primary governing document of Morocco, which had its last referendum in 2011—but it is also self-sustaining and self-legitimizing, for the monarchy uses its constitutional powers to grant itself further powers …


Replacing Death With Life? The Rise Of Lwop In The Context Of Abolitionist Campaigns In The United States, Michelle Miao Jan 2020

Replacing Death With Life? The Rise Of Lwop In The Context Of Abolitionist Campaigns In The United States, Michelle Miao

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

On the basis of fifty-four elite interviews[1] with legislators, judges, attorneys, and civil society advocates as well as a state-by-state data survey, this Article examines the complex linkage between the two major penal trends in American society during the past decades: a declining use of capital punishment across the United States and a growing population of prisoners serving “life without the possibility of parole” or “LWOP” sentences. The main contribution of the research is threefold. First, the research proposes to redefine the boundary between life and death in relation to penal discourses regarding the death penalty and LWOP. LWOP …


Book Review Essay: Jewish And American Law: A Comparative Study. (Vols. 1 And 2) By Samuel J. Levine, Marie A. Failinger Jan 2020

Book Review Essay: Jewish And American Law: A Comparative Study. (Vols. 1 And 2) By Samuel J. Levine, Marie A. Failinger

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Unwavering Movement: Integrating Reason Into British Penal Code 1730-1823, Rebecca M. Good Dec 2019

The Unwavering Movement: Integrating Reason Into British Penal Code 1730-1823, Rebecca M. Good

International ResearchScape Journal

Between the early 16th and 18th centuries, English attitude towards crime and correction were based on the strong held belief that faith and religion were the only cure to immorality. Lawmakers began to threaten citizens with capital punishment for menial crimes such as petty theft and begging. Resulting of a moral panic, lawmakers turned to the deterrence to dissuade citizens from partaking in criminal activity. The list of crimes punishable by death in England rose from 50 offenses in 1688 to over 220 in 1815. This article explains the origins of the Bloody Code and how Enlightenment-Era thought …


An Examination Of The Death Penalty, Alexandra N. Kremer Dec 2018

An Examination Of The Death Penalty, Alexandra N. Kremer

The Downtown Review

The death penalty, or capital punishment, is the use of execution through hanging, beheading, drowning, gas chambers, lethal injection, and electrocution among others in response to a crime. This has spurred much debate on whether it should be used for reasons such as ethics, revenge, economics, effectiveness as a deterrent, and constitutionality. Capital punishment has roots that date back to the 18th century B.C., but, as of 2016, has been abolished in law or practice by more than two thirds of the world’s countries and several states within the United States. Here, the arguments for and against the death …


Does Religion Have A Role In Criminal Sentencing?, Jack B. Weinstein May 2014

Does Religion Have A Role In Criminal Sentencing?, Jack B. Weinstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


Commonwealth Of Kentucky V. William P. King, Et Al. (Sc 1744), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Sep 2008

Commonwealth Of Kentucky V. William P. King, Et Al. (Sc 1744), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1744. Record of trial held in Simpson County, Kentucky of William P. King, Charles Smith, Abraham Owen and seven others for the murder of Harvey King. Defendants and victim had all participated in a previous train robbery. Also includes a photocopy of The Life of King and Owen, Written by Themselves, Revised and Prepared by Rev. L. M. Horn, Explaining the Railroad Robbery and Murder of Harvey King (Louisville, Ky., 1867); and “‘A High Handed Outrage:’ The King & Owens Railroad Robbery of 1866,” a paper written …


Engaging Capital Emotions, Douglas A. Berman, Stephanos Bibas Jan 2008

Engaging Capital Emotions, Douglas A. Berman, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, is about to decide whether the Eighth Amendment forbids capital punishment for child rape. Commentators are aghast, viewing this as a vengeful recrudescence of emotion clouding sober, rational criminal justice policy. To their minds, emotion is distracting. To ours, however, emotion is central to understand the death penalty. Descriptively, emotions help to explain many features of our death-penalty jurisprudence. Normatively, emotions are central to why we punish, and denying or squelching them risks prompting vigilantism and other unhealthy outlets for this normal human reaction. The emotional case for the death penalty for child …


Review Of The Hanging Of Ephraim Wheeler : A Story Of Rape, Incest, And Justice In Early America, Michael F. Russo May 2003

Review Of The Hanging Of Ephraim Wheeler : A Story Of Rape, Incest, And Justice In Early America, Michael F. Russo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Celluloid Death: Cinematic Depictions Of Capital Punishment, Roberta M. Harding Jul 1996

Celluloid Death: Cinematic Depictions Of Capital Punishment, Roberta M. Harding

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This essay will examine how two filmmakers used the cinema to investigate death penalty issues through the films Dead Man Walking and Last Light. These films were selected because of their similarities: capital punishment is the central theme of both films; the presence of a strong principal character who is the condemned inmate; the utilization of a character who undergoes a spiritual transformation due to interaction with the condemned inmate; the decision to have this character facilitate the humanization of the condemned individual; and the additional role this character plays as the audiences' conscience. There are, however, differences in the …


Race And Capital Punishment, Michael L. Radelet Sep 1987

Race And Capital Punishment, Michael L. Radelet

Trotter Review

Whether it be lynching or legally-imposed capital punishment, the threat or use of death as a punishment has been a powerful means of class and race intimidation throughout American history. In the nineteenth century, statutes that explicitly considered race were not uncommon; in Virginia, for example, the statutes of 150 years ago listed five capital crimes for whites and 70 for black slaves. Today, historians interested in capital punishment use records of state compensations to slave owners to learn how many slaves were executed.