Download or read book Debating the Death Penalty written by Hugo Adam Bedau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-24 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts on both side of the issue speak out both for and against capital punishment and the rationale behind their individual beliefs.
Download or read book The Death Penalty written by Ernest Van den Haag and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1965 until 1980, there was a virtual moratorium on executions for capital offenses in the United States. This was due primarily to protracted legal proceedings challenging the death penalty on constitutional grounds. After much Sturm und Drang, the Supreme Court of the United States, by a divided vote, finally decided that "the death penalty does not invariably violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment." The Court's decisions, however, do not moot the controversy about the death penalty or render this excellent book irrelevant. The ball is now in the court of the Legislature and the Executive. Leg islatures, federal and state, can impose or abolish the death penalty, within the guidelines prescribed by the Supreme Court. A Chief Executive can commute a death sentence. And even the Supreme Court can change its mind, as it has done on many occasions and did, with respect to various aspects of the death penalty itself, durlog the moratorium period. Also, the people can change their minds. Some time ago, a majority, according to reliable polls, favored abolition. Today, a substantial majority favors imposition of the death penalty. The pendulum can swing again, as it has done in the past.
Download or read book The Death Penalty written by Louis P. Pojman and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two distinguished social and political philosophers take opposing positions in this highly engaging work. Louis P. Pojman justifies the practice of execution by appealing to the principle of retribution: we deserve to be rewarded and punished according to the virtue or viciousness of our actions. He asserts that the death penalty does deter some potential murderers and that we risk the lives of innocent people who might otherwise live if we refuse to execute those deserving that punishment. Jeffrey Reiman argues that although the death penalty is a just punishment for murder, we are not morally obliged to execute murderers. Since we lack conclusive evidence that executing murderers is an effective deterrent and because we can foster the advance of civilization by demonstrating our intolerance for cruelty in our unwillingness to kill those who kill others, Reiman concludes that it is good in principle to avoid the death penalty, and bad in practice to impose it.
Download or read book Furman V Georgia written by Rebecca Stefoff and published by Marshall Cavendish. This book was released on 2008 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the 1972 Supreme Court case Furman v. Georgia in regard to the death penalty.
Download or read book The Debate About the Death Penalty written by Kaye Stearman and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2007-12-15 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the debate about the death penalty raising questions about whether it is justified, whether it is ever humane, who dies and who lives, and whether the death penalty ever makes society safer.
Download or read book The Death Penalty written by Thomas Streissguth and published by Enslow Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines all sides of the death penalty debate, highlighting several controversial cases and exploring such issues as the execution of the mentally impared and racial differences in executions. Also describes new developments in science and technology that are changing the way guilt and innocence are decided and the way punishment is imposed.
Download or read book Capital Punishment written by Ted Gottfried and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should a convicted murderer be given the death penalty? Ted Gottfried takes a balanced view and examines the many sides of this issue, discussing the history of capital punishment and specific cases involving this topic.
Download or read book Deterrence and the Death Penalty written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2012-05-26 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many studies during the past few decades have sought to determine whether the death penalty has any deterrent effect on homicide rates. Researchers have reached widely varying, even contradictory, conclusions. Some studies have concluded that the threat of capital punishment deters murders, saving large numbers of lives; other studies have concluded that executions actually increase homicides; still others, that executions have no effect on murder rates. Commentary among researchers, advocates, and policymakers on the scientific validity of the findings has sometimes been acrimonious. Against this backdrop, the National Research Council report Deterrence and the Death Penalty assesses whether the available evidence provides a scientific basis for answering questions of if and how the death penalty affects homicide rates. This new report from the Committee on Law and Justice concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates. The key question is whether capital punishment is less or more effective as a deterrent than alternative punishments, such as a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Yet none of the research that has been done accounted for the possible effect of noncapital punishments on homicide rates. The report recommends new avenues of research that may provide broader insight into any deterrent effects from both capital and noncapital punishments.
Download or read book A Life for a Life written by Michael Dow Burkhead and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2009-08-06 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a new look at the intense public debate surrounding the death penalty in the United States, this book explores the various trends in public opinion that influence crime prevention efforts, create public policy, and reform criminal law. It examines eight core issues about the use of execution: cruel and unusual punishment, discrimination, deterrence, due process, culpability, scripture, innocence, and justice. It provides a brief history of capital punishment in the United States from the earliest known execution at the Jamestown Colony in 1608 to executions occurring as recently as 2008. Additional topics include the regionalization of capital punishment sentences, the spiritual and scriptural debate over the death penalty, the role of DNA evidence in modern execution sentences, and the ongoing effects of Furman v. Georgia, McClesky v. Kemp, Baze v. Rees, and other related court rulings.
Download or read book Debating the Death Penalty written by Hugo Adam Bedau and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2004 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts on both side of the issue--including Paul Cassell, Alexander Kozinski, Louis Pojman, Stephen Bright, Hugo Bedau, Bryan Stevenson, Joshua Marquis, and Governor George Ryan--speak out both for and against capital punishment and the rationale behind their individual beliefs.
Download or read book The Biblical Truth about America s Death Penalty written by Dale S. Recinella and published by Northeastern University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While secular support for capital punishment in America seems to be waning, religious conservatives, particularly in the "Bible belt," remain staunch advocates of the death penalty, citing biblical law and practice to defend government-sanctioned killing. Dale S. Recinella compares biblical teaching about the death penalty, including such passages as "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life," with the nation's current system of capital punishment, and offers persuasive arguments for a faith-based moratorium on -- and eventual abolition of -- executions. Framing his careful and incisive analysis as a legal brief to those who believe the Bible mandates the ultimate punishment, the author addresses two critical areas of inquiry: what do the scriptures tell us about who is deserving of death and who has the authority to kill, and what do they tell us about the required standards for execution and the plight of victims' families. Recinella's examination of the Hebrew Torah, or Christian Pentateuch, and the Talmud reveals that the biblical death penalty was not a simple system of swift retribution, but a complex and practical set of laws that guided capital courts established under the Sanhedrin. His scrutiny of these texts, the Christian doctrine of atonement, and Romans 13 in the Pauline Epistles, draws parallels between the traditional biblical arguments used in favor of capital punishment and those used as the basis for pro-slavery positions in the nineteenth century. Demonstrating that both approaches are unsubstantiated in biblical terms, Recinella debunks the accepted religious reasoning for support of the death penalty and shows instead that the Bible's strict conditions for sanctioning execution are at odds with the arbitrary ways in which capital punishment is administered in the United States. He provides convincing evidence that a sentence of death in today's criminal justice system in fact fails to meet both the Bible's exacting procedural requirements and its strict limitations on judicial authority. By providing actual scriptural language and foundation to counter the position that biblical truth justifies a pro-death penalty stance, this thoughtful, solidly researched, and well-reasoned work will give pause to religious fundamentalists and challenge them to rethink their strongly held views on capital punishment.
Download or read book Voices of the Death Penalty Debate written by Russell G. Murphy and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Through the statements of witnesses who testified at historic hearings in New York between December 2004 and February 2005, [the book] seeks to educate a national and international citizenry about capital punishment. ... present[ing] the essential facts relating to the death penalty and the major categories of debate over capital punishment worldwide"--Introd.
Download or read book Punishment and the Death Penalty written by Robert M. Baird and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of twenty essays by legal scholars, sociologists, and philosophers discussing the punishments for crime.
Download or read book The Death Penalty Debate written by Justin Healey and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Let the Lord Sort Them written by Maurice Chammah and published by Crown. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 369 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 The Death Penalty in America written by Hugo Adam Bedau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-05-28 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: InThe Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies, Hugo Adam Bedau, one of our preeminent scholars on the subject,provides a comprehensive sourcebook on the death penalty, making the process of informed consideration not only possible but fascinating as well. No mere revision of the third edition of The Death Penalty in America--which the New York Times praised as "the most complete, well-edited and comprehensive collection of readings on the pros and cons of the death penalty"--this volume brings together an entirely new selection of 40 essays and includes updated statistical and research data, recent Supreme Court decisions, and the best current contributions to the debate over capital punishment. From the status of the death penalty worldwide to current attitudes of Americans toward convicted killers, from legal arguments challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty to moral arguments enlisting the New Testament in support of it, from controversies over the role of race and class in the judicial system to proposals to televise executions, Bedau gathers readings that explore all the most compelling aspects of this most compelling issue.
Download or read book The Death Penalty written by Robert M. Baird and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this excellent anthology, leading experts examines all sides of this thorny issue. Besides age-old questions surrounding the death penalty, some of the articles also address the impact of new advances in DNA technology.
