Capital Punishment in the Post-Civil War Years

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-62
Author(s):  
David M. Doyle ◽  
Liam O’Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Death Sentences

This chapter examines the application of the death penalty in the first ten years of the Free State. Historians to date have argued that the relatively high number of civilian executions in the early post-independence years was symptomatic of Cumann nGaedheal’s broader anxieties with issues of law and order. This chapter revises that assessment and argues that those convicted of murder in the civilian courts in these years were no more likely to have their sentence carried out than those convicted in subsequent eras. By closely examining the decision-making process leading to the execution or commutation of death sentences, particularly the role of judges and government officials, this chapter argues that the death penalty, as imposed by the ordinary courts, was an example of the government’s efforts to restore peacetime civilian norms to the criminal justice system and was not used to any political end.

Cumulative Racial and Ethnic Inequalities in Potentially Capital Cases

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-249
Author(s):  
Nick Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Ethnic Disparities ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Racial Ethnic ◽  
Multiple Stages

To understand how racial/ethnic disparities are formed and sustained within death penalty institutions, this study tracks homicide cases through multiple stages of Los Angeles County’s criminal justice system. Drawing upon cumulative disadvantage research, this study focuses on the accumulation of racial/ethnic biases across multiple decision-making points. Logistic regressions seek to answer the following questions: (1) does victim/defendant race/ethnicity influence prosecutorial decision-making? and (2) if so, do these racial/ethnic disparities accumulate across multiple stages of the criminal justice system? Results indicate that cases with minority victims are less likely to involve a death-eligible charge or death notice. Moreover, these racial/ethnic disparities increase as cases advance through the courts, producing a Whiter pool of victims at later stages in the process. Defendant race/ethnicity is not predictive of death penalty charging decisions but does moderate the influence of victim race/ethnicity such that cases with minority defendants and White victims are treated more punitively.

scholarly journals Litigating in the Shadow of Innocence

2006 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence C. Marshall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Supreme Court

In 1976, the Supreme Court of the United States, allowing optimism to trump experience, accepted various states’ assurances that new death penalty procedures the states had then recently adopted would avoid the vices that had led the Court to strike down the death penalty in 1972. Now, some thirty years later, a body of evidence has developed demonstrating that this experiment has failed—that the problems of arbitrariness, racism and propensity to error are endemic to the criminal justice system (particularly with regard to capital punishment) and cannot be cured by what Justice Blackmun called “tinker[ing] with the machinery of death.” Despite the Court’s best intentions, the death penalty procedures of the 1980s and 1990s and the first half of this decade reflect little if any significant improvement over the condemned pre-1972 systems.

The Death Penalty in Post-Mao China

1990 ◽  
Vol 123 ◽  
pp. 503-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Scobell
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Justice System ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Wide Range

The People's Republic of China has come under strong international criticism recently over its use of the death penalty. Capital punishment had a long history in China as a permanent fixture of the criminal justice system well before the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949. Today the death penalty is an integral part of the legal system and is meted out for a wide range of offences.

1. Criminal law process

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Jeremy Horder
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
Rules And Standards

This chapter discusses the process of criminal law. The focus is on the importance of the exercise of official discretion, on the criminal law in action, and on the role of bureaucracy in criminal law. There is also an outline of sentencing powers. Patterns of decision-making by criminal justice officials are one of four key pillars of criminal law and justice, along with criminal law principles, rules, and standards. We will see how these patterns are structured by crime management and bureaucratic-administrative techniques designed to reduce the number of contested trials and issues, and hence take pressure off the criminal justice system as a whole.

Death Penalty In India: A Critical Analysis

LAW REVIEW ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vandana Tiwari
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Legal Process ◽  
Supreme Court Of India ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
Law Commission

The death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for crime. Death punishment has always been the part of criminal justice system not only in India but also in the whole world from the very ancient time till present time. Still there has been a global trend towards the abolition of death/capital punishment. The attitude of Supreme Court of India towards death penalty has been considerably changed since last 68 years. Law commission of India has also realised various reports on this issue. Through this Article various aspects related to death penalty has been discussed.

Justice, Mercy, and Caprice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian O'Donnell
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Religious Institution ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Law

Justice, Mercy, and Caprice is a work of criminal justice history that speaks to the gradual emergence of a more humane Irish state. It is a close examination of what can be learned from the National Archives of Ireland about the decision to grant clemency to men and women sentenced to death between the end of the civil war in 1923 and the abolition of capital punishment in 1990. Frequently, the decision to deflect the law from its course was an attempt to introduce a measure of justice to a system where the mandatory death sentence for murder caused predictable unfairness and undue harshness. In some instances the decision to commute a death penalty sprang from merciful motivations. In others it was capricious, depending on factors that should have had no place in the government’s decision-making calculus. The custodial careers of those whose lives were spared repay scrutiny. Women tended to serve relatively short periods in prison but were often transferred to a religious institution, such as a Magdalen laundry, where their coercive confinement continued, occasionally for life. Men, by contrast, served longer in prison but were discharged directly to the community. Political offenders, such as members of the IRA, were either executed hastily or, when the threat of capital punishment had passed, incarcerated for extravagant periods. The issues addressed are of continuing relevance for countries that retain capital punishment as the ultimate sanction.

scholarly journals Examining the Sources of Racial Bias in Potentially Capital Cases

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Logistic Regressions ◽  
Research Questions

While prior research has uncovered racial disparities in the administration of death sentences, little attention has been devoted to earlier stages in the capital punishment processes. To understand the locus of racial bias within death penalty institutions, this study examines the entry of homicide cases into Los Angeles County’s criminal justice system during a 5-year period. This two-part analysis seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) Does victim/defendant race influence homicide clearance and death penalty charging decisions? and (2) if so, does the likelihood of clearance mediate the effect of victim race on death penalty charges? Logistic regressions indicate that cases involving Latino victims are less likely to be cleared. Moreover, cases with Black and Latino victims are less likely to be prosecuted with a death penalty–eligible charge. Racial disparities accumulate across these stages, with clearance patterns influencing subsequent death penalty charging decisions. Results underscore the cumulative nature of racial within criminal justice institutions. By linking police and prosecution outcomes, these findings also highlight the interrelationship between criminal justice agencies.

Escaping the Guillotine: The Gap between the Crimes Punishable by Death and the Effective Death Sentences (France, 20th Century)

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 265-281
Author(s):  
Nicolas Picard
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Place Of Death ◽  
The People ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Statistical Report ◽  
Mitigating Circumstances

A statistical report of 1906 evaluated the place of death sentences in the judicial system, with the main purpose of supporting the bill of abolition of the death penalty (finally rejected). This report showed the negligible role of the capital punishment in the penal repression – as if the guillotine had already fallen into abeyance. According to the Penal Code of 1810, aggravated murders (premeditated murders, murders accompanied by another crime, murders of a public officer), parricides, poisonings, arsons of houses, as well as complicity in and attempt of such crimes, were all punishable by the guillotine. However, a large implementation of the principle of mitigating circumstances allowed to avoid the enforcement of death penalty. Moreover, two thirds of the people sentenced to death were pardoned, often with the support of the juries. The substitute penalty was a perpetual imprisonment, but this “perpetuity” became shorter and shorter after 1945.

The Political Responsiveness of Violent Crime Prosecution

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 936-948
Author(s):  
Ethan D. Boldt ◽  
Christina L. Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Operational Constraints ◽  
Insight Into

Is a federal prosecutor’s decision whether to pursue violent crime charges political? While prosecutors frequently assert their decision-making independence, their selection and operational constraints suggest a very different story. We assess whether political factors related to the prosecution priorities of the president, Congress, and the local public affect federal prosecutors’ decisions to pursue or decline charges in violent crime matters. To empirically examine this, we utilize data from 89 U.S. Attorneys offices from 1996 to 2011. The results provide rich new insight into when and why federal prosecutors’ decisions to pursue or decline prosecutions are driven by the preferences of the president, Congress, and the local public. The findings also have important broader implications for the role of political factors in a U.S. criminal justice system believed by many to be in crisis.

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