Author: Julian B. KnowlesPublisher:
ISBN: 9780957678569
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 67
Book Description
The Abolition of the Death Penalty in the United Kingdom
Author: Julian B. KnowlesPublisher:
ISBN: 9780957678569
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 67
Book Description
Hanging in the Balance
Author: Brian P. BlockPublisher: Waterside Press
ISBN: 1908162392
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
"Hanging in the Balance" traces the history of capital punishment in the United Kingdom from ancient times to the modern day - through periods of reform until hanging for murder was finally abolished by Parliament in 1969. It describes in detail the Parliamentary and public debates, and notes the stance taken by organizations and individuals (including the tenacious and persistent Sydney Silverman MP). The book collates data and references not previously brought together in one place-and in exploring the underlying issues and the recurring arguments about deterrence, retribution and expediency it provides an invaluable resource vis-a-vis the same debate in the many countries where capital punishment still exists.Lord Callaghan was home secretary at the time of abolition. His 'Foreword' conveys how strong his personal feelings were concerning the death penalty from the time he entered Parliament in 1945. The book's closing chapters record how his insistence that abolition should become permanent ultimately overcame the still considerable opposition. Capital punishment was finally abolished in 1999 throughout the UK. For all practical purposes this had already happened in 1969 when the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 was made fully effective into following a trial period.
End of Its Rope
Author: Brandon GarrettPublisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674970993
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343
Book Description
An awakening -- Inevitability of innocence -- Mercy vs. justice -- The great American death penalty decline -- The defense lawyering effect -- Murder insurance -- The other death penalty -- The execution decline -- End game -- The triumph of mercy
The Road to Abolition?
Author: Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814762247
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
At the start of the twenty-first century, America is in the midst of a profound national reconsideration of the death penalty. There has been a dramatic decline in the number of people being sentenced to death as well as executed, exonerations have become common, and the number of states abolishing the death penalty is on the rise. The essays featured in The Road to Abolition? track this shift in attitudes toward capital punishment, and consider whether or not the death penalty will ever be abolished in America. The interdisciplinary group of experts gathered by Charles J. Ogletree Jr., and Austin Sarat ask and attempt to answer the hard questions that need to be addressed if the death penalty is to be abolished. Will the death penalty end only to be replaced with life in prison without parole? Will life without the possibility of parole become, in essence, the new death penalty? For abolitionists, might that be a pyrrhic victory? The contributors discuss how the death penalty might be abolished, with particular emphasis on the current debate over lethal injection as a case study on why and how the elimination of certain forms of execution might provide a model for the larger abolition of the death penalty.
Capital Punishment in Twentieth-Century Britain
Author: Lizzie SealPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136250727
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Capital punishment for murder was abolished in Britain in 1965. At this time, the way people in Britain perceived and understood the death penalty had changed – it was an issue that had become increasingly controversial, high-profile and fraught with emotion. In order to understand why this was, it is necessary to examine how ordinary people learned about and experienced capital punishment. Drawing on primary research, this book explores the cultural life of the death penalty in Britain in the twentieth century, including an exploration of the role of the popular press and a discussion of portrayals of the death penalty in plays, novels and films. Popular protest against capital punishment and public responses to and understandings of capital cases are also discussed, particularly in relation to conceptualisations of justice. Miscarriages of justice were significant to capital punishment’s increasingly fraught nature in the mid twentieth-century and the book analyses the unsettling power of two such high profile miscarriages of justice. The final chapters consider the continuing relevance of capital punishment in Britain after abolition, including its symbolism and how people negotiate memories of the death penalty. Capital Punishment in Twentieth-Century Britain is groundbreaking in its attention to the death penalty and the effect it had on everyday life and it is the only text on this era to place public and popular discourses about, and reactions to, capital punishment at the centre of the analysis. Interdisciplinary in focus and methodology, it will appeal to historians, criminologists, sociologists and socio-legal scholars.
Peculiar Institution
Author: David GarlandPublisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674058488
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428
Book Description
The U.S. death penalty is a peculiar institution, and a uniquely American one. Despite its comprehensive abolition elsewhere in the Western world, capital punishment continues in dozens of American states– a fact that is frequently discussed but rarely understood. The same puzzlement surrounds the peculiar form that American capital punishment now takes, with its uneven application, its seemingly endless delays, and the uncertainty of its ever being carried out in individual cases, none of which seem conducive to effective crime control or criminal justice. In a brilliantly provocative study, David Garland explains this tenacity and shows how death penalty practice has come to bear the distinctive hallmarks of America’s political institutions and cultural conflicts. America’s radical federalism and local democracy, as well as its legacy of violence and racism, account for our divergence from the rest of the West. Whereas the elites of other nations were able to impose nationwide abolition from above despite public objections, American elites are unable– and unwilling– to end a punishment that has the support of local majorities and a storied place in popular culture. In the course of hundreds of decisions, federal courts sought to rationalize and civilize an institution that too often resembled a lynching, producing layers of legal process but also delays and reversals. Yet the Supreme Court insists that the issue is to be decided by local political actors and public opinion. So the death penalty continues to respond to popular will, enhancing the power of criminal justice professionals, providing drama for the media, and bringing pleasure to a public audience who consumes its chilling tales. Garland brings a new clarity to our understanding of this peculiar institution– and a new challenge to supporters and opponents alike.
The Death Penalty as Torture
Author: John D. BesslerPublisher:
ISBN: 9781611639261
Category : Capital punishment
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The Death Penalty as Torture: From the Dark Ages to Abolition was named a Bronze Medalist in the World History category of the Independent Publisher Book Awards and a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards (2018). During the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, Europe's monarchs often resorted to torture and executions. The pain inflicted by instruments of torture--from the thumbscrew and the rack to the Inquisition's tools of torment--was eclipsed only by horrific methods of execution, from breaking on the wheel and crucifixion to drawing and quartering and burning at the stake. The English "Bloody Code" made more than 200 crimes punishable by death, and judicial torture--expressly authorized by law and used to extract confessions--permeated continental European legal systems. Judges regularly imposed death sentences and other harsh corporal punishments, from the stocks and the pillory, to branding and ear cropping, to lashes at public whipping posts. In the Enlightenment, jurists and writers questioned the efficacy of torture and capital punishment. In 1764, the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria--the father of the world's anti-death penalty movement--condemned both practices. And Montesquieu, like Beccaria and others, concluded that any punishment that goes beyond absolute necessity is tyrannical. Traditionally, torture and executions have been viewed in separate legal silos, with countries renouncing acts of torture while simultaneously using capital punishment. The UN Convention Against Torture strictly prohibits physical or psychological torture; not even war or threat of war can be invoked to justify it. But under the guise of "lawful sanctions," some countries continue to carry out executions even though they bear the indicia of torture. In The Death Penalty as Torture, Prof. John Bessler argues that death sentences and executions are medieval relics. In a world in which "mock" or simulated executions, as well as a host of other non-lethal acts, are already considered to be torturous, he contends that death sentences and executions should be classified under the rubric of torture. Unlike in the Middle Ages, penitentiaries--one of the products of the Enlightenment--now exist throughout the globe to house violent offenders. With the rise of life without parole sentences, and with more than four of five nations no longer using executions, The Death Penalty as Torture calls for the recognition of a peremptory, international law norm against the death penalty's use.
Courting Death
Author: Carol S. SteikerPublisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674737423
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
Before constitutional regulation -- The Supreme Court steps in -- The invisibility of race in the constitutional revolution -- Between the Supreme Court and the states -- The failures of regulation -- An unsustainable system? -- Recurring patterns in constitutional regulation -- The future of the American death penalty -- Life after death
Slavery and the Death Penalty
Author: Bharat MalkaniPublisher:
ISBN: 9780367899035
Category : Antislavery movements
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
It has long been acknowledged that the death penalty in the United States of America has been shaped by the country's history of slavery and racial violence, but this book considers the lesser-explored relationship between the two practices' respective abolitionist movements. The book explains how the historical and conceptual links between slavery and capital punishment have both helped and hindered efforts to end capital punishment. The comparative study also sheds light on the nature of such efforts, and offers lessons for how death penalty abolitionism should proceed in future. Using the history of slavery and abolition, it is argued that anti-death penalty efforts should be premised on the ideologies of the radical slavery abolitionists.
The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law
Author: William SchabasPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521893442
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 512
Book Description
This is the 2002 third edition of William A. Schabas's highly praised study of the abolition of the death penalty in international law. Extensively revised to take account of developments in the field since publication of the second edition in 1997, the book details the progress of the international community away from the use of capital punishment, discussing in detail the abolition of the death penalty within the United Nations human rights system, international humanitarian law, European human rights law and Inter-American human rights law. New chapters in the third edition address capital punishment in African human rights law and in international criminal law. An extensive list of appendices contains many of the essential documents for the study of capital punishment in international law. The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law is introduced with a Foreword by Judge Gilbert Guillaume, President of the International Court of Justice.