Conclusion: Ireland as a Mainstream Abolitionist Country

2020 ◽  
pp. 245-252
Author(s):  
David M. Doyle ◽  
Liam O’Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Political Controversy

This chapter concludes the book by examining, first, the complete abolition of the death penalty through the Criminal Justice Act 1990 and, second, the constitutional prohibition of the death penalty by referendum in 2001. In so doing Ireland signalled position as a mainstream abolitionist state, one committed, along with fellow European union members, to oppose capital punishment internationally. The chapter concludes by considering why the death penalty was not a source of public or political controversy in Ireland.

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.

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.”

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.

scholarly journals KONSEPSI DAN APLIKASI PIDANA MATI DALAM PERADILAN DI INDONESIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 711
Author(s):  
I Made Pasek Budiawan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Psychotropic Substances ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Process

Imposition of the death penalty by the judge in the criminal justice process Indonesia still remains a debate among groups that agread with the group that oppose it. But in some laws for special crimes such as terrorism, corruption, narcotics, psychotropic substances, and a human rights capital punishment is still regulated, as well as of the criminal code and the concept of the criminal code by 2015 capital punishment is still based. The  existence of the group that did not agree with the conception and application of this dying, argued that human life bussiness, my God, not the man to lift the perspective of the scientific criminal law that a death penalty still exists in all criminal acts by perpetrators of crimes with widespread impact as well as detrimental to the wider community the research for criminal santions was important to examine the existence of the norms of law as a basic for corrector by maximum capital punishment in Indonesia. Penjatuhan pidana mati oleh hakim dalam proses peradilan pidana Indonesia masih tetap menjadi perdebatan antara kelompok yang setuju dengan kelompok yang menentangnya. Namun dalam beberapa undang-undang tindak pidana khusus seperti terorisme, korupsi, narkotika, psikotropika dan peradilan hak asasi manusia pidana mati masih diatur, begitu juga KUHP dan konsep KUHP tahun 2015 pidana mati masih tetap dicanangkan. Adanya kelompok yang tidak setuju dengan konsepsi dan aplikasi pidana  mati ini berdalih bahwa nyawa manusia menjadi urusan Tuhan, bukan menjadi kewenangan manusia untuk mencabutnya. Perspektif keilmuan hukum pidana bahwa pidana mati masih eksis untuk diberlakukan sepanjang tindak pidana yang dilakukan pelaku menyangkut kejahatan luar biasa dengan dampak luas serta merugikan masyarakat luas. Penelitian terhadap sanksi pidana mati penting dilakukan guna meneliti keberadaan norma hukum sebagai dasar pembenar dijatuhkannya pidana mati ini di Indonesia.

scholarly journals Sources of Public Response to the Death Penalty in Britain, 1930–65

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizzie Seal
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Public Response ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Research Workshop ◽  
Criminology And Criminal Justice ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractThis article by Lizzie Seal is adapted from a presentation given at the Sources and Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice socio-legal research workshop that was held at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in November 2015. It explores the selection of qualitative sources for a project that aimed to uncover public responses to capital punishment in the mid twentieth-century. The article discusses which sources were selected and considers their strengths and weaknesses. It concludes that the particular sources chosen as data can, in themselves, help to shape researchers’ thinking about their findings.

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.

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.

Our Black Prisons

1981 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 364-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Christianson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Black Males ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Legal Implications ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
Political Economic

Americans have long taken it for granted that blacks and other minorities are highly overrepresented in prisons. However, the actual extent of that overrepresentation, the reasons for it, and its social, political, economic, and legal implications have remained neglected. A recent study reveals a nationwide pattern of vastly disproportionate incarceration rates for blacks and whites, and comparison with earlier surveys indicates that the problem has grown worse, not better, as greater attention purportedly has been paid to affirmative action. There is an urgent and long overdue need for social scientists, lawyers, criminal justice officials, and concerned citizens to join in confronting these issues. Notwithstanding some fundamental differences between imprisonment and capital punishment, many of the constitutional issues that have been raised for the death penalty can and should be applied to the more pervasive problem of invidious racial discrimination in the imprisonment of black males.

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