Examination of Decision Making and Botched Lethal Injection Executions in Texas

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (12) ◽  
pp. 1715-1732
Author(s):  
Talia Roitberg Harmon ◽  
Michael Cassidy ◽  
Richelle Kloch
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Single Drug ◽  
Lethal Injection ◽  
Injection Protocol ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Analyze Data

This research examines the influence of lethal injection drug shortages on Texas criminal justice officials’ decision to change the state’s three-drug lethal injection protocol to the use of pentobarbital as a single drug protocol, without judicial oversight. We analyze data collected under the three- and one-drug protocols from 1982 through 2020 and compare differences in the length of time the lethal injection took, and complications reported by media witnesses. Findings suggest a higher rate of botched executions under the one-drug protocol than the three-drug protocol. We discuss the role compounding pharmacies may play in our results, the impact of this work on the U.S. Supreme Court’s death penalty jurisprudence, and implications concerning the unilateral decision making by Texas state officials.

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.”

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.

scholarly journals Attitudes, Rape and Law Reform in South Africa

2009 ◽  
Vol 73 (5) ◽  
pp. 414-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charnelle van der Bijl ◽  
Philip N. S. Rumney
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Rape Law ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Process ◽  
The Impact

In the last decade South Africa has undergone an extensive process of sexual offence law reform. This process has attempted, amongst other things, to address deficiencies in the criminal justice response to rape and has also recognised some of the limits to the impact of legal reform. These limits are partly defined by rape supportive attitudes and myths that appear to influence decision-making at all points in the criminal justice process. In South Africa, and many other jurisdictions, evidence suggests that police, prosecutorial and judicial decision-making is influenced, in part, by a range of social attitudes that misconstrue sexual violence, as well as serve to undermine the credibility of complainants. This article examines the impact of myths, social definitions of rape on rape law reform in South Africa and the points at which these reforms are likely to be undermined by social attitudes and what potentially might be done to address this problem.

A Dialogue-Centric Approach to Environmental-Remediation Decision-Making

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurel Boucher ◽  
James F. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Department Of Defense ◽  
Environmental Remediation ◽  
Leadership Skills ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Remediation Plan ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Poor Management ◽  
Responsible Party

This paper outlines a multi-step approach to streamline and enhance the decision-making process that guides environmental remediation. The inability of the responsible party and the various stakeholders to reach agreement on the remediation plan can delay the remediation, result in financial penalties, and lead to the development of an adversarial stance that inhibits the ability of the parties to work together in a creative and constructive manner. The approach presented by the authors is designed to expand dialogue in a way that moves it beyond technical or fiscal matters by addressing what the authors describe as the “hidden barriers” to productive dialogue. These “hidden barriers” include: self-interests, the perception as to how people are being treated, a lack of clarity or poor management of responsibilities and accountabilities, unclear or convoluted communication protocols, and an underlying tone of conflict and cynicism. A key element of the multi-step approach outlined in this paper is the process of uncovering these “hidden barriers” and addressing them in a way that turns discourse into collaboration. The paper describes a model the authors have used to streamline and enhance the process of creating sustainable agreements both for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management as well as the U.S. Department of Defense for a variety of environmental remediation projects. The results of this approach include the acceleration of an environmental clean-up from a projected 19 years to 11 years, the development of innovative technical strategies, the reduction of a major backlog of environmental proposals requiring review and comment, and the distinction accorded one group of being recognized as a model of effective partnering. The approach described has widespread implications not only because its use can be expanded to include a multitude of decision-making applications but also because of the impact it creates by expanding both the management and leadership skills of those who use it.

scholarly journals How Would You Like to Die? Glossip v. Gross Deals Blow to Abolitionists

2017 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-103
Author(s):  
Brenda I. Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Severe Pain ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Drug Supply ◽  
Lethal Injection ◽  
Substantial Risk ◽  
Injection Protocol ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Attack Strategy

After capital punishment opponents’ pressure on drug suppliers reduced the lethal injection drug supply, Oklahoma began using midazolam, resulting in botched executions. Condemned inmates sought to stop use of this lethal injection protocol. In Glossip v. Gross, the U.S. Supreme Court found inmates failed to establish that such protocols entail a substantial risk of severe pain compared with available alternatives, undermining the supply side attack strategy and leaving inmates facing the possibility of an unnecessarily painful execution. This article places the Glossip decision within the context of method of execution jurisprudence and discusses implications for the ongoing battle over capital punishment.

A Comparative Study of the Relationship Between Time and Criminal Justice: the New Face of Criminal Statutes of Limitations in Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 300-334
Author(s):  
Simone Lonati
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Limitation Periods ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Made In

Addressing the need to avoid punishing long past events that have fallen into oblivion, only to then come into play when the government, by means of proceedings, stages a re-enactment and thus a reminiscence of those events: statutes of limitations in criminal law are marked by an axiological ambiguity. The debate on their quomodo becomes particularly heated when the focus turns to the possible interferences between limitation periods and criminal proceedings. The discussion stems from the difficult attempt to balance primary and essentially heterogeneous interests: on the one hand, protecting the accused from the “punishment of trial” and, on the other, providing the criminal justice system with adequate time for prosecuting and adjudicating criminal offences as a way to effectively protect the interests harmed by the commission of certain crimes. Furthermore, there is a widespread concern to avoid instrumental conducts by the parties solely aimed at running out the clock. The matter is undoubtedly complex, as the issues and implications it gives rise to are multiple and varied. In an attempt to outline a possible statutory framework that may govern the relationship between the passage of time after the commission of an offence and the time needed for its adjudication, it may be useful to expand the knowledge base from which to draw upon in order to identify appropriate solutions: to look beyond domestic boundaries is, after all, good practice when faced with an impasse. This analysis aims to closely examine the choices made in two legal systems-Germany and Spain-whose legal traditions are the closest to Italy. Firstly, the study will describe the key features characterizing, in general, limitation periods for criminal offences. Subsequently, special attention will be paid to the rules governing the impact that the launch and dynamics of criminal proceedings have on the running of limitation periods. Based on the differences and especially the similarities between the respective rules in force in the two countries, it will be possible to formulate a number of observations regarding the provisions implemented by the Italian legislator. Lastly, comparing and contrasting the German and Spanish legal experiences will allow a closer look at the more recent reforms of statutes of limitations in Italy, to the extent that the latter appear roughly inspired by the principles applied in the aforementioned systems.

METHOD FOR MAKING DISPERSANT-USE DECISIONS BASED ON ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT CONSIDERATIONS

1987 ◽  
Vol 1987 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. K. Trudel ◽  
S. L. Ross
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Gulf Of Mexico ◽  
Beaufort Sea ◽  
Similar System ◽  
Decision Making System ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACT A method for making dispersant use decisions on the basis of environmental impact considerations has been developed. It involves formulating and then comparing predictions of the impact of a given spill if treated with dispersants or if left untreated in order to determine whether the use of dispersants might reduce the overall effects of the spill. A workbook describing the method has been used in numerous workshops in Canada and the U.S.A. to train environmental managers, and has served as a basis for the development of a quick, map-based, decision-making system for the Canadian Beaufort Sea. A similar system is currently being developed for the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

An application of super ensemble simulation with appropriate bias correction for river planning in Japan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoshi Watanabe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Bias Correction ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Conventional Approach ◽  
Ensemble Simulation ◽  
Class A ◽  
Design Rainfall ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

<p>In this study, a methodology that uses super ensemble simulation with appropriate bias correction for river planning was proposed. The Database for Policy Decision-Making for Future Climate Change (d4PDF) is a super ensemble experiments that comprise over 1000-year output have been conducted. The d4PDF provides regional downscaling simulation that focuses around Japan. It is expected that the impact assessments of climate changes on various fields considering uncertainly are conducted.</p><p>The impact of climate change on floods is a serious issue. In Japan, all class A river has design rainfall for the river planning that is defined considering historical observations of precipitation that happens once in several hundred years, which the planning year is different depending on the situation of a river. The design rainfall provides the fundamental information for planning river management.  The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation and Tourism defines the value of the rainfall in the planning year in each class A river basin by considering the hydro-meteorological and social characteristics of each basin. As the design rainfall was defined in the mid-1900s for most of the rivers, the method to estimate precipitation in the planning year was conducted with limited observation data using extreme statistical value. The super ensemble simulation data is expected to contribute for the decision making with appropriate setting of design rainfall.</p><p>We proposed a method to correct the bias of super ensemble simulation and estimated the design rainfall in 47 river basins selected from class A river basins. The estimated design rainfall was compared between the one estimated with super ensemble simulation and the one estimated with conventional approach. The spread of results oriented from super ensemble simulation indicated that uncertainly of design rainfall estimated with conventional approach was so high that the consideration of uncertainty is necessary for river planning. The experiments indicated that the use of super ensemble simulation with appropriate bias correction could provide knowledge that aids us in understanding the hydrological extremes.</p>

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.

Parole Guidelines: Suggested Research Questions

1981 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Galvin ◽  
Kenneth Polk
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Statistical Procedures ◽  
Offense Severity ◽  
Rehabilitation Model ◽  
Time Served ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Impact

Three factors have supported the development of parole guidelines: criticism of the rehabilitation model as a basis for parole decision making and the accompanying movement toward a just deserts model of punishment, the development of sophisticated statistical procedures for risk assessment, and increasing questions about disparity in criminal justice decision making. This paper raises questions related to each of these three factors that should be addressed by the research community as guidelines are implemented. With respect to offense severity and sentence served, key considerations are the rationale for sentence lengths, the degree to which discretion is being structured, inmates' perceptions of the guidelines, and the effect of guidelines on time served. Under risk assessment and parole prediction, the accuracy of the salient factors as predictors, the problem of false positives, and the possibility of unan ticipated bias must be addressed. In terms of effects on the overall system, questions are raised about the extent to which discretion can be structured, the effect on correctional staffs of changing the purpose of correction, and the impact of such a shift on the already dwindling resources for the parolee. The paper closes with a call for a coherent program of research to accompany the implementation of guidelines.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document