Download or read book Lethal State written by Seth Kotch and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For years, American states have tinkered with the machinery of death, seeking to align capital punishment with evolving social standards and public will. Against this backdrop, North Carolina had long stood out as a prolific executioner with harsh mandatory sentencing statutes. But as the state sought to remake its image as modern and business-progressive in the early twentieth century, the question of execution preoccupied lawmakers, reformers, and state boosters alike. In this book, Seth Kotch recounts the history of the death penalty in North Carolina from its colonial origins to the present. He tracks the attempts to reform and sanitize the administration of death in a state as dedicated to its image as it was to rigid racial hierarchies. Through this lens, Lethal State helps explain not only Americans' deep and growing uncertainty about the death penalty but also their commitment to it. Kotch argues that Jim Crow justice continued to reign in the guise of a modernizing, orderly state and offers essential insight into the relationship between race, violence, and power in North Carolina. The history of capital punishment in North Carolina, as in other states wrestling with similar issues, emerges as one of state-building through lethal punishment.
Download or read book Deadly Justice written by Frank R. Baumgartner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forty years and 1,400 executions after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty constitutional, eminent political scientist Frank Baumgartner and a team of younger scholars have collaborated to assess the empirical record and provide a definitive account of how the death penalty has been implemented. A Statistical Portrait of the Death Penalty shows that all the flaws that caused the Supreme Court to invalidate the death penalty in 1972 remain and indeed that new problems have arisen. Far from "perfecting the mechanism" of death, the modern system has failed.
Download or read book A Wild Justice The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America written by Evan J. Mandery and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-08-19 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Drawing on never-before-published original source detail, the epic story of two of the most consequential, and largely forgotten, moments in Supreme Court history. For two hundred years, the constitutionality of capital punishment had been axiomatic. But in 1962, Justice Arthur Goldberg and his clerk Alan Dershowitz dared to suggest otherwise, launching an underfunded band of civil rights attorneys on a quixotic crusade. In 1972, in a most unlikely victory, the Supreme Court struck down Georgia’s death penalty law in Furman v. Georgia. Though the decision had sharply divided the justices, nearly everyone, including the justices themselves, believed Furman would mean the end of executions in America. Instead, states responded with a swift and decisive showing of support for capital punishment. As anxiety about crime rose and public approval of the Supreme Court declined, the stage was set in 1976 for Gregg v. Georgia, in which the Court dramatically reversed direction. A Wild Justice is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the Court, the justices, and the political complexities of one of the most racially charged and morally vexing issues of our time.
Download or read book Where Justice and Mercy Meet written by Vicki Schieber and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where Justice and Mercy Meet: Catholic Opposition to the Death Penalty comprehensively explores the Catholic stance against capital punishment in new and important ways. The broad perspective of this book has been shaped in conversation with the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty, as well as through the witness of family members of murder victims and the spiritual advisors of condemned inmates. The book offers the reader new insight into the debates about capital punishment; provides revealing, and sometimes surprising, information about methods of execution; and explores national and international trends and movements related to the death penalty. It also addresses how the death penalty has been intertwined with racism, the high percentage of the mentally disabled on death row, and how the death penalty disproportionately affects the poor. The foundation for the church's position on the death penalty is illuminated by discussion of the life and death of Jesus, Scripture, the Mass, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the teachings of Pope John Paul II. Written for concerned Catholics and other interested readers, the book contains contemporary stories and examples, as well as discussion questions to engage groups in exploring complex issues.
Download or read book Grace and Justice on Death Row written by Brian W. Stolarz and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Washington Post bestseller! A chilling and compassionate look at how close an innocent man was to being put death with a foreword by Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking. What is worse than having a client on Death Row in Texas? Having a client on Death Row in Texas who is innocent and not knowing if you will be able to stop his execution in time. Grace and Justice on Death Row: A Race Against Time to Free an Innocent Man tells the story of Alfred Dewayne Brown, a man who spent over twelve years in prison (ten of them on Texas’ infamous Death Row) for a high-profile crime he did not commit, and his lawyer, Brian Stolarz, who dedicated his career and life to secure his freedom. The book chronicles Brown’s extraordinary journey to freedom against very long odds, overcoming unscrupulous prosecutors, corrupt police, inadequate defense counsel, and a broken criminal justice system. The book examines how a lawyer-client relationship turned into one of brotherhood. Grace And Justice On Death Row also addresses many issues facing the criminal justice system and the death penalty – race, class, adequate defense counsel, and intellectual disability, and proposes reforms. Told from Stolarz’s perspective, this raw, fast-paced look into what it took to save one man’s life will leave you questioning the criminal justice system in this country. It is a story of injustice and redemption that must be told.
Download or read book The Death of Punishment written by Robert Blecker and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For twelve years Robert Blecker, a criminal law professor, wandered freely inside Lorton Central Prison, armed only with cigarettes and a tape recorder. The Death of Punishment tests legal philosophy against the reality and wisdom of street criminals and their guards. Some killers' poignant circumstances should lead us to mercy; others show clearly why they should die. After thousands of hours over twenty-five years inside maximum security prisons and on death rows in seven states, the history and philosophy professor exposes the perversity of justice: Inside prison, ironically, it's nobody's job to punish. Thus the worst criminals often live the best lives. The Death of Punishment challenges the reader to refine deeply held beliefs on life and death as punishment that flare up with every news story of a heinous crime. It argues that society must redesign life and death in prison to make the punishment more nearly fit the crime. It closes with the final irony: If we make prison the punishment it should be, we may well abolish the very death penalty justice now requires.
Download or read book End of Its Rope written by Brandon Garrett and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-25 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book Death Justice written by Kenneth Wayne Miller and published by LFB Scholarly Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Death Justice" argues that one fallacy that passes for truth is the widely held notion that Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas apply a fixed standard to death penalty cases. Thanks in part to the trio, the U.S. stands far apart from its allies and quite close to its enemies with regard to the death penalty.
Download or read book Let the Lord Sort Them written by Maurice Chammah and published by Crown. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America “If you’re one of those people who despair that nothing changes, and dream that something can, this is a story of how it does.”—Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times Book Review WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment. Then, amid a larger wave of criminal justice reform, came the death penalty’s decline, a trend so durable that even in Texas the punishment appears again close to extinction. In Let the Lord Sort Them, Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched. We meet Elsa Alcala, the orphaned daughter of a Mexican American family who found her calling as a prosecutor in the nation’s death penalty capital, before becoming a judge on the state’s highest court. We meet Danalynn Recer, a lawyer who became obsessively devoted to unearthing the life stories of men who committed terrible crimes, and fought for mercy in courtrooms across the state. We meet death row prisoners—many of them once-famous figures like Henry Lee Lucas, Gary Graham, and Karla Faye Tucker—along with their families and the families of their victims. And we meet the executioners, who struggle openly with what society has asked them to do. In tracing these interconnected lives against the rise of mass incarceration in Texas and the country as a whole, Chammah explores what the persistence of the death penalty tells us about forgiveness and retribution, fairness and justice, history and myth. Written with intimacy and grace, Let the Lord Sort Them is the definitive portrait of a particularly American institution.
Download or read book Justice in the Shadow of Death written by Michael Davis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1996 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With wide public support in 1994, Congress established more than sixty new capital crimes. In Justice in the Shadow of Death, Davis argues that, if the United States is ever to join the majority of the world in abolishing capital punishment, opponents of the death penalty must make a stronger philosophical case against it. He systematically dissects the arguments in favor of capital punishment and demonstrates why they are philosophically superior to opposing arguments. Justice in the Shadow of Death is an important book for philosophers, political theorists, policy analysts, and criminal justice specialists.
Download or read book In the Shadow of Death written by Elizabeth Beck and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-02-08 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The press called Martin's actions a "crime spree." Already convicted of armed robbery, Martin was facing the death penalty. In less than two weeks the jury would decide his fate. Terrified that his son would be sentenced to die, Phillip did the only thing he felt he could do: in an act of faith and desperation in his garage with the car exhaust running, Phillip made the consummate sacrifice to spare his son the ultimate punishment. Ironically, his suicide presented Martin's with another chance at life; the jury, moved by Martin's loss, spared his life. Phillip's story-like those of the other parents, siblings, children, and cousins chronicled in this book-vividly illustrates the precarious position family members of capital offenders occupy in the criminal justice system. At once outsiders and victims, they live in the shadow of death, crushed by trauma, grief, and helplessness. In this penetrating account of guilt and innocence, shame and triumph, devastating loss and ultimate redemption, the voices of these family members add a new dimension to debates about capital punishment and how communities can prevent and address crime. Restorative justice theory, which views violent crime as an extreme violation of relationships; searches for ways to hold offenders accountable; and meets the needs of victims and communities torn apart by the crime, organizes these narratives and integrates offenders' families into the process of transforming conflict and promoting justice and healing for all. What emerges from hundreds of hours' worth of in-depth interviews with family members of offenders and victims, legal teams, and leaders in the abolition and restorative justice movements is a vision of justice strongly rooted in the social fabric of communities. Showing that forgiveness and recovery are possible in the wake of even the most heinous crimes, while holding victims' stories sacred, this eye-opening book bridges the pain of living in the shadow of death with the possibility of a reparative form of justice. Anyone working with victims, offenders, and their families-from lawyers and social workers to mediators and activists-will find this riveting work indispensable to their efforts.
Download or read book Death Justice and the State written by Matthew Lockwood and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 820 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Equal Justice and the Death Penalty written by David C. Baldus and published by UPNE. This book was released on 1990 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Death Justice written by Mark Fuhrman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controversy rages about capital punishment as innocent men and women are being released from death rows all over the country. Are innocent people being executed? Is capital punishment justice or is it revenge? Into the debate steps Mark Fuhrman, America's most famous detective, and no stranger to controversy himself. Fuhrman seeks to answer these questions by investigating the death penalty in Oklahoma, where a "hang 'em high" attitude of cowboy justice resulted in twenty–one executions in 2001, more than any other state. Most of these cases came from one jurisdiction, Oklahoma County, where legendary DA Bob Macy bragged of sending more people to death row than any other prosecutor, and police chemist Joyce Gilchrist was eventually fired for mismanaging the crime lab. Examining police records, trial transcripts, appellate decisions and conducting hundreds of interviews, Fuhrman focuses his considerable investigative skills on more than a dozen of the most controversial Oklahoma death penalty cases.
Download or read book Medicolegal Death Investigation System written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2003-08-22 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of The National Academies to conduct a workshop that would examine the interface of the medicolegal death investigation system and the criminal justice system. NIJ was particularly interested in a workshop in which speakers would highlight not only the status and needs of the medicolegal death investigation system as currently administered by medical examiners and coroners but also its potential to meet emerging issues facing contemporary society in America. Additionally, the workshop was to highlight priority areas for a potential IOM study on this topic. To achieve those goals, IOM constituted the Committee for the Workshop on the Medicolegal Death Investigation System, which developed a workshop that focused on the role of the medical examiner and coroner death investigation system and its promise for improving both the criminal justice system and the public health and health care systems, and their ability to respond to terrorist threats and events. Six panels were formed to highlight different aspects of the medicolegal death investigation system, including ways to improve it and expand it beyond its traditional response and meet growing demands and challenges. This report summarizes the Workshop presentations and discussions that followed them.
Download or read book The Penalty is Death written by Barry Jones and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Executing Justice written by Lloyd H. Steffen and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black journalist Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 of murdering a Philadelphia policeman. Abu-Jamal's defense attorney weighs in on the legal and social ambiguities of his case. Details Abu-Jamal's Black Panther background and the political atmosphere of Philadelphia.
