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Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons

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Law Enforcement and Corrections

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Death penalty

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Full-Text Articles in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Official Misconduct And Error Correction Mechanisms In Exonerated Death Penalty Cases, Kamali'ilani Theresa Elizabeth Wetherell May 2021

Official Misconduct And Error Correction Mechanisms In Exonerated Death Penalty Cases, Kamali'ilani Theresa Elizabeth Wetherell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There has been an average of approximately 3.9 death penalty exonerations annually in the United States since 1973 (DPIC, 2021). Wrongful convictions and executions constitute grave and irreversible errors. Studies show official misconduct is one of the leading causes for wrongful convictions and exonerations. Misconduct by police, prosecutors, and judges includes a wide range of behaviors such as coercing confessions, depriving rights to legal counsel, threatening witnesses, and concealing evidence. Operating under the due process model, the adversarial legal system is designed to detect and prevent any procedural violations of defendant’s rights, including official misconduct. Utilizing Packer’s (1964) due process …


Blameworthiness And Dangerousness: An Analysis Of Violent Female Capital Offenders In The United States And China, Courtney Lahaie Apr 2010

Blameworthiness And Dangerousness: An Analysis Of Violent Female Capital Offenders In The United States And China, Courtney Lahaie

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA) (2010 - 2017)

The United States and China represent two of the leading nations that retain the death penalty in both law and practice. Research suggests that judges’ sentencing decisions are based primarily on two factors, blameworthiness and dangerousness. Studies involving gender and sentencing in capital punishment cases tend to provide inconsistent findings. The current study uses case narratives to examine the direct and conjunctive effects of various factors on the sentencing decisions of violent female capital offenders in the United States and China. The findings suggest that the concepts of blameworthiness and dangerousness are distinctly defined in the United States and China. …