The Death Penalty: A 25-Year Retrospective and a Perspective on the Future

1996 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Acker
Keyword(s):  
1988 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 573-575
Author(s):  
Hugo Adam Bedau
Keyword(s):  

Killing Times ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 87-118
Author(s):  
David Wills

What is called the “temporal technology” of the human can be analyzed as a relation between time and blood. The death penalty reveals that relation not as a natural one but as a “prosthetic” one, whereby time gets attached to the human body in such a way that it mimics the flow of blood but at the same time shows that flow to be mechanically produced. That conclusion is reached by tracing a history of mortal time that links Socrates to Heidegger and by examining in detail Hegel’s promotion of blood as a figure for dialectical sublation in general, a blood that is simultaneously inside and outside the body. As a result, blood is “shed” by means of an execution whether it involves the guillotine or lethal injection.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Kelly Tate

his essay grapples with a previously unexamined feature of the death penalty: temporal arbitrariness. How does the circumstance of time affect capital defendants? What might this mean for the stability of our notions of justice? I explore these questions using a 25-year-old death penalty trial as a case study, examining the procedural and factual highlights of the case and situating it in its temporal milieu. I then explore how the roles of doctrine, policy, and cultural attitudes would dramatically alter the nature and probable outcome of the case today, illustrating how temporal arbitrariness further exposes the death penalty’s unsteady administration and indeed, its crumbling legitimacy.


1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 56-57
Author(s):  
Toyoji Saito
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Elizabeth Rottenberg

This chapter addresses the “question” of the death penalty in Jacques Derrida’s The Death Penalty seminars: the question of the death penalty, if there is one, that is. For nothing is less certain. Not only must we speak of a proliferation of questions in both seminars, but we must also speak of Derrida’s question about the question. How do the possibility and the reality of the death penalty, how does the question of the death penalty, force us to ask a question not only about what comes before the question but also about the future of the question—that is, about the future of reason, the principle of reason, and what is proper to man? In order to answer this question, this chapter turns to a “disseminal moment” in literature: the eccentric Mr. Dick (in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield) who literally suspends the question of the death penalty on the wings of a kite.


Author(s):  
Julian V. Roberts

‘The future of criminal justice’ proposes that a number of trends are set to continue. Budget cuts will mean more privatization along with greater public awareness and official scrutiny of police. It is likely that many countries will seek to reduce the use of imprisonment as a sanction, with more electronic monitoring replacing custody as a sentence. It is also likely that more offenders will be punished through financial penalties and asset seizure. A greater harmonization of effective criminal justice practices worldwide may result in the end of the death penalty. Finally, victims may be given even more rights throughout the criminal process.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Douglass

Virginia now averages less than a single death sentence each year, a far cry from its not-too-distant history as the second most active death penalty state in the nation. The numbers alone tempt us to forecast the death of Virginia's death penalty: a death by disuse. But those numbers leave much of the story untold. The plummeting number of death sentences is only the diminishing tip of a larger, more stable iceberg of capital case litigation. That iceberg is melting very slowly, if at all.


Author(s):  
Gaétan-Philippe Beaulière

Le portrait de la Terreur brossé par Alexandre Dumas dans La Femme au collier de velours et Les Mille et un Fantômes porte un jugement sévère sur le recours à la violence des révolutionnaires. L'utilisation effrénée de la peine de mort y apparaît comme une manifestation de l'immaturité d'une classe exerçant maladroitement un pouvoir politique nouvellement acquis. Mais si cette représentation de l’Histoire est teintée d'une certaine appréhension à l’égard du pouvoir populaire, c’est moins les valeurs de liberté, d'égalité et de démocratie que leur galvaudage qui sont critiquées dans ces récits. À cet égard, l'interprétation du passé se révèle, chez Dumas, inspirée du présent et résolument tournée vers l'avenir.AbstractThe portrait of the Reign of Terror built up by Alexandre Dumas in La Femme au collier de velours and Les Mille et un Fantômes censures the insurgents' use of violence. In these texts, the frantic use of the death penalty emphasizes the callowness of a class that clumsily handles its newly acquired political powers. Yet, if this representation of History is somewhat tainted by a fear of the power resting in the people's hands, it is not the values of liberty, equality, and democracy, but their degradation that it criticizes. In this respect, Dumas' reflection on the past is inspired by the present, and is purposefully oriented toward the future.


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