Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities: Statement of Lowell Dodge, Director, Administration of Justice Issues Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives

This is a comprehensive and nuanced historical survey of the death penalty in Ireland from the immediate post-Civil War period through to its complete abolition. Using original archival material, this book sheds light on the various social, legal and political contexts in which the death penalty operated and was discussed. In Ireland the death penalty served a dual function: as an instrument of punishment in the civilian criminal justice system, and as a weapon to combat periodic threats to the security of the state posed by the IRA. In closely examining cases dealt with in the ordinary criminal courts, this book elucidates ideas of class, gender, community and sanity and how these factors had an impact the administration of justice. The application of the death penalty also had a strong political dimension, most evident in the enactment of emergency legislation and the setting up of military courts specifically targeted at the IRA. As this book demonstrates, the civilian and the political strands converged in the story of the abolition of the death penalty in Ireland. Long after decision-makers accepted that the death penalty was no longer an acceptable punishment for ‘ordinary’ cases of murder, lingering anxieties about the threat of subversives dictated the pace of abolition and the scope of the relevant legislation.

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

Annual Review of Law and Social Science ◽

10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-042220-111211 ◽

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.

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Statement of Ralph G. Steinhardt, Professor of Law, before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives

Criminal Law Forum ◽

10.1007/bf01096027 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 135-154

Author(s):

Keyword(s):

House Of Representatives ◽

Constitutional Rights

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A Powerful Sympathy: Terror, the Prison, and Humanitarian Reform in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain

Journal of British Studies ◽

10.1086/385867 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 25 (3) ◽

pp. 312-334 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Randall McGowen

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Death Penalty ◽

Criminal Law ◽

Early Nineteenth Century ◽

The People ◽

Difficult Time ◽

Administration Of Justice ◽

Moral Taste

It is felt that men are henceforth to be held together by new ties, and separated by new barriere; for the ancient bonds will now no longer unite, nor the ancient boundaries confine. [J. S. Mill, “The Spirit of the Age” (1831)]I“The punishment of death shocks every mind to which it is vividly presented,” wrote Edward Gibbon Wakefield in 1832. It “overturns the most settled notions of right and wrong.” H. G. Bennet announced in Parliament in 1820 that he thought an execution “weakened the moral taste or sensibility of the people.” Such high-minded but platitudinous phrases frequently recurred in the early nineteenth-century debate over the criminal law, though historians have had a difficult time knowing what to make of them. Yet for all their vagueness such expressions do reveal a sensibility whose outline we can trace and whose influence we can measure. In drawing a connection between feeling and morality Wakefield appealed to social assumptions and values that were popular among humanitarians. Criminal law reformers proposed a new and exacting standard for the administration of justice: “Punishment,” argued James Scarlett, “ought to be consonant to the feelings and sympathies of mankind; and … those feelings ought to be enlisted on the side of the administration of justice.” They argued that the heavy reliance on the death penalty was a mistaken policy. The gallows aroused dangerous passions that signaled the existence of intractable social antagonism. They opposed such a spectacle with reforms that aimed at the promotion of a social union founded on shared feeling.

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JOSÉ MARÍA VARGAS VILA, DEFENSOR DE LA CONSTITUCIÓN DE RIONEGRO

AFEL ◽

10.1344/aflc2019.9.3 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 15-27

Author(s):

Consuelo Triviño Anzola

Keyword(s):

Death Penalty ◽

Civil Wars ◽

Latin American ◽

The State ◽

Constitutional Rights ◽

New Granada ◽

Freedom Of Press ◽

The Creation ◽

Jose Maria Vargas Vila ◽

The Church

After the independence and the creation of the New Granada in 1819, the young Latin American republics continued faced disputing power. The caudillos spent their energies in partisan struggles because personal, group, class and ethnic interests overlapped, often under romantic formulations. Between chaos and order, 14 constitutions were drafted in Colombia until reaching the Rionegro Constitution of 1863. Promulgated by the leaders of Radical Liberalism, it went too far in its pursuit of utopia. Federalism, defense of individual freedoms, abolition of the death penalty, freedom of press and separation of the Church and the State are some of its most important conquests, but the consequences of its extremes triggered bloody civil wars. In the heat of these disputes arises José María Vargas Vila (1860-1933), the famous pamphleteer, who enlisted in the ranks of Radical Liberalism defending constitutional rights. This article exposes the position of a Colombian liberal intellectual in face of period called Regeneration that seeks to impose peace and order in Colombia restricting the freedoms and rights granted by the Rionegro Constitution.

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