Development of the Death Penalty Criminal Justice Orientation Measure

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Flores
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Death Penalty

The Quest for Coherence in Kenya’s Judicial Sentencing Policy: A Review of the Jurisprudence Following the Muruatetu Case

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-149
Author(s):  
Phyllis Ngugi
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
Trial Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Sentencing Policy

The Supreme Court decision in the now-infamous case Francis Karioko Muruatetu v Republic1 seemed to settle the enduring debate whether sentencing is a judicial or a legislative function. The court’s ruling was that sentencing is a judicial function and that the mandatory nature of the death penalty for murder2 was unconstitutional because it took away the courts’ discretion to determine a just and proportionate punishment to impose on a convicted person. In its judgment, the court ordered that the judiciary sentencing policy3 be revised to reflect the court’s guidelines on the obligation of courts to listen to the accused’s mitigation before sentencing. The court also directed that a framework for sentence rehearing be prepared immediately to allow applicants who had been sentenced in circumstances similar to those of the petitioners to apply for sentence a rehearing from the trial court. This article examines the aftermath of this judgment in terms of whether the Supreme Court’s decision helped to cure the challenge that lies in the current sentencing process; achieving coherence and proportionality in the sentencing process. By using jurisprudential arguments, we intend to demonstrate that, despite the court’s direction to all courts to ensure that no person should be subjected to a disproportionate sentence, the problem of disproportional sentencing is one that goes beyond merely reviewing of the sentencing guidelines but also demands a reform of the entire criminal justice system.

Postscript: From Forced Labour to Penal Servitude

2020 ◽  
pp. 150-162
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Pelli
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Hard Labour

This chapter discusses the impact of Cesare Beccaria's work on philosophers, jurists, politicians and church leaders in Italy and abroad. The debates and controversies that it provoked concerned far more than the death penalty, for he had surveyed the whole system of criminal justice with a fiercely critical eye. It reviews Beccaria's surrogate penalty of hard labour, which has received rather less attention than his views on the death penalty and other aspects of criminal justice. The chapter also explores the process by which the favoured surrogate penalty of the two Italian reformers (for Giuseppe Pelli as well as Beccaria advocated forced labour) evolved into the punishment that is routinely characterised as 'penal servitude' by contemporary legal historians and criminologists. Ultimately, the chapter investigates preliminary observations of Beccaria's surrogate penalty as slavery or servitude, and both Pelli and Beccaria's reference to their preferred alternative punishment as forced labour, not as imprisonment at hard labour.

The Influence of Latino Ethnicity on the Imposition of the Death Penalty

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 421-431
Author(s):  
Sheri Lynn Johnson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Archival Studies ◽  
Related Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Era

With respect to African Americans, the history of racial discrimination in the imposition of the death penalty is well-known, and the persistence of racial disparities in the modern era of capital punishment is well-documented. In contrast, the influence of Latino ethnicity on the imposition of the death penalty has been studied very little. A review of the limited literature reveals evidence of discrimination against Latinos. Archival studies generally find ethnicity-of-victim discrimination, and some of those studies find ethnicity-of-defendant discrimination disadvantaging Latino defendants; these findings parallel the findings of the much more robust literature investigating bias against African American defendants and victims. The controlled experimental studies generally show both ethnicity-of-defendant and ethnicity-of-victim discrimination disadvantaging Latinos. Related literature investigating stereotypes, animosity, and discrimination in other criminal justice decisions further suggests the likelihood of ethnicity discrimination in the imposition of capital punishment, as well as the need for further research.

scholarly journals Conflicted conservatives, punitive views, and anti-Black racial bias 1974–2014

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth K Brown ◽  
Kelly M Socia ◽  
Jasmine R Silver
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
Swing Voters

Research suggests that the views of “conflicted conservatives,” Americans who self-identify as conservative but express support for liberal governmental policies and spending, are particularly important in policymaking and politics because they are politically engaged and often act as swing voters. We examine punitive views among conflicted conservatives and other political subgroups in three distinct periods in the politics of punishment in America between 1974 and 2014. In particular, we consider the punitive views of conflicted conservatives relative to consistent conservatives, moderates, and liberals. Given the barrier that racialized typifications of violent crime may pose to current criminal justice reform efforts, we also explore the role of anti-Black bias in predicting punitive views among White Americans across political subgroups. Our overall findings indicate that conflicted conservatives are like moderates in their support for the death penalty and like consistent conservatives on beliefs about court harshness. These findings, and supplemental analyses on punitive views and voting behaviors across political subgroups, call into question whether conflicted conservatives have acted as critical scorekeepers on penal policy issues. We also find that anti-Black racism was significantly related to punitive views across political subgroups and among liberals in particular.

Why isn’t history a recognized criminal specialists’ teacher?

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Jarosław Warylewski
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The Real ◽  
Penal Law ◽  
History Of

The study includes reflections on the history of punishment and other means of a criminal reaction, their effectiveness and their impact on the criminal justice system. It indicates the limited “repertoire” of the mentioned measures. It draws attention to the real threats to the most important legal interests, especially to life, such as war and terrorism. It doubts the effectiveness of severe penalties, especially the death penalty. Indicates the dangers of penal populism and the perishing of law, including criminal law. It contains an appeal to criminologists and penal law experts to deal with all these dangers in terms of ideas rather than individual regulations.

The Impact of Crime Victimization and Fear of Crime on Attitudes Toward Death Penalty Defendants

1987 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Seltzer ◽  
Joseph P. McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Crime Victimization ◽  
Attitudes Toward Death ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Mitigating Circumstances ◽  
Penalty Phase

A 1983 telephone survey of 610 respondents in two Maryland counties found that the general disposition of the respondents toward the criminal justice system was a better predictor of abstract attitudes toward the death penalty than either the respondents’ fear of becoming crime victims or whether they had been victims of crime. Yet respondents’ fear of crime victimization was a better predictor of their willingness to impose the death penalty or to accept mitigating circumstances during the penalty phase of a capital case than their abstract attitudes toward the criminal justice system. Respondents who were “somewhat” afraid of crime victimization were less likely to support the death penalty than were respondents who were “very” afraid or “not” afraid of victimization. These findings indicate that previous research on the death penalty may have been flawed because the wording of the questions asked was too abstract and unidimensional.

The Execution of Wallace Wilkerson

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Acker ◽  
Ryan Champagne
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
Firing Squad ◽  
Lethal Injection ◽  
The U.S

Wallace Wilkerson was executed by a Utah firing squad in 1879 after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of his sentence. Shots from the marksmen’s rifles missed his heart. Not strapped into the chair where he had been seated, Wilkerson lurched onto the ground and exclaimed, “My God!…They missed it!” He groaned, continued breathing, and was pronounced dead some 27 min later. Relying on contemporaneous news accounts and legal documents, this article describes Wilkerson’s crime, the judicial decisions upholding his death sentence, and his execution. It next examines ensuing methods of capital punishment from the electric chair through lethal injection and notes persistent gaps between principle and practice in the continuing quest for increasingly humane modes of execution. The article concludes by suggesting that Wilkerson’s botched firing squad execution harbingered difficulties which continue to plague capital punishment. The implications for the future of the death penalty—a long-standing and resilient practice in American criminal justice—and the ultimate legacy of Wallace Wilkerson remain uncertain, although starkly evident is the daunting and perhaps impossible challenge of reconciling the paradox inherent in the concept of a “humane execution.”

The American Death Penalty

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-390
Author(s):  
Carol S. Steiker ◽  
Jordan M. Steiker
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Juvenile Offenders ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Defense Counsel ◽  
System A ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Process

The Supreme Court’s constitutional regulation of the American death penalty has yielded a plethora of doctrines that have shaped an alternative criminal justice process that is (mostly) limited to capital cases. Many of these doctrines offer a vision and practice of “roads not taken” in the ordinary criminal justice process that would be attractive improvements in that larger system. We consider three of these doctrines: (1) more searching review of the proportionality of sentencing outcomes; (2) imposition of a requirement of individualized sentencing that has led to the investigation and presentation of in-depth evidence in mitigation; and (3) greater regulation of the adequacy of defense counsel that has moved closer to a “checklist” model of mandated practices. Each of these doctrines was born and developed under the Court’s “death is different” regime of constitutional regulation, and each of them has to some limited extent moved beyond the strictly capital context into the broader criminal justice process. We explain how these alternative models present attractive improvements for the broader noncapital system—a view that casts the Court’s regulation of the American death penalty as a progressive laboratory that can yield alternative, more protective, and more idealized processes for the ordinary criminal justice system. Yet we also caution that the “differentness” of death—and of juvenile offenders, the noncapital context to which the Court is most likely to import its death penalty innovations—can also serve to normalize and entrench the less protective, less idealized practices that exist outside of these realms.

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