I Cannot Allow This Boy to Be Executed

Lethal State ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 84-110
Author(s):  
Seth Kotch
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
The State ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Parole Board ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Executive Clemency

This chapter explains how executive clemency—the state governor’s power to reduce a death penalty to a lesser sentence—helped make capital punishment function in North Carolina. With mandatory death sentences for four serious crimes (murder, rape, burglary, and arson), judges had no choice but to pronounce a death penalty upon conviction. This left it up to the governor to decide whether or not the convicted person would be executed. Although this power was reserved for the governor, it was soon transferred to a parole board, which reviewed each death sentence and invited community comment. This process most benefitted teenagers and women. Perversely, more African Americans received commutations than whites because of the high rate of error in their trials.

The Making of the Modern Death Penalty in Jim Crow North Carolina

2019 ◽  
pp. 192-214
Author(s):  
Seth Kotch
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Convictions ◽  
The Impact

focuses on the transition from local public hangings to state-controlled electrocutions in North Carolina in the early twentieth century. The chapter addresses the impact of this shift on African American communities. Although the death penalty had long served as an instrument of racial control, the ritual of a local hanging nevertheless had allowed the condemned and black witnesses a public space to express religious convictions and honor the condemned’s suffering. Once the state seized control of this ritual, African Americans were largely excluded as witnesses. The modern death penalty thus came to represent the racial subjugation of Jim Crow, indeed having more in common with lynchings than legal hangings had.

The Shadow of Subversion

2020 ◽  
pp. 201-244
Author(s):  
David M. Doyle ◽  
Liam O’Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
The State ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Irish Government ◽  
Additional Protection ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

This chapter examines the abolition of the death penalty in Ireland. The Criminal Justice Act 1964, introduced by the Minister for Justice and staunch abolitionist Charles Haughey, removed the death penalty for all offences apart from murder committed under certain circumstances. Among these was murder of an on-duty member of the Garda Síochána, who, the government decided, warranted the additional protection assumed to be afforded them by the death penalty. The legislation was grounded in lingering fears, as old as the state itself, about anti-state subversive activities, mainly those likely to be carried out by the IRA. In light of this, the chapter compares the abolition experiences of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. That the death penalty was a dubious deterrent under the southern legislation was proven by a spate of garda murders (and resultant death sentences) in the 1970s and 1980s perpetrated by individuals specifically targeted by the 1964 Act. The potency of the 1964 Act was also undermined by the singular unwillingness of any Irish government even consider confirming a death sentence, especially in light of the abolitionist consensus among western European governments.

To Reinstate or to Not Reinstate? An Exploratory Study of Student Perspectives on the Death Penalty in Michigan

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mensah Adinkrah ◽  
William M. Clemens
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Public University ◽  
The State ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Attitudinal Survey ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. state of Michigan abolished the death penalty in 1846. Since then, several abortive efforts have been made by state legislators to re-establish the death sentence to deal with convicted murderers. Concurrently, some support exists among Michigan residents for the restoration of capital punishment in the state. This article presents the results of the analysis of an attitudinal survey of 116 college students enrolled in three criminal justice courses in a Michigan public university concerning the reinstatement of the death sentence in the state. The data from this exploratory study show that a slight majority (52.6%) of respondents favored reinstatement whereas 45.7% opposed restoration. Advocates and opponents of re-establishment of the death penalty in Michigan provided similar religious, moral and economic arguments proffered by others in previous surveys on capital punishment available in the death penalty literature. The current study makes a contribution to the scant extant literature on attitudes toward the death penalty in abolitionist jurisdictions. As this body of literature grows, it can provide baseline data or information with which to compare attitudes in retentionist states.

Without Howling, Without Squirming

Lethal State ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 57-83
Author(s):  
Seth Kotch
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
The State ◽  
Electric Chair ◽  
Gas Chamber

This chapter explores the drive to make execution painless for the condemned and easy for executioners and witnesses. When the state of North Carolina took responsibility for capital punishment from county sheriffs, it introduced the electric chair. When that failed to produce a swift and spectacle-free death, the state constructed a gas chamber. The search for a reliable, quiet, and painless method of execution sapped most of the activist energy around the death penalty, transforming its form but never its function.

EKSISTENSI PENERAPAN HUKUMAN MATI DI INDONESIA

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
R Ahmad Muhammad Mustain Nasuha
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
The State ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Draft Bill

This study aims the death penalty in Indonesia. We know where the death penalty is contrary or not in terms of the constitution and Islamic law, then we can conclude that if the legal implementation of the death penalty in Indonesia continue to be done or should be abolished. Based on research and the analysis conducted, conclude that Indonesia According to the Indonesian Constitution that the death penalty in Indonesia is constitutional. Constitutional Court Decision No. 2-3 / PUU-V / 2007 states that the imposition of the death penalty was constitutional. Any law governing capital punishment is not contrary to the Constitution of the State of Indonesia. However the legislation in Indonesia death penalty is still recognized in some legislation. There are three groups of rules, namely: Criminal Dead in the Criminal Code, Criminal die outside the Criminal Code, Criminal die in the Draft Bill. According to Islamic law that the death penalty could be applied to some criminal act or jinazah, either hudud qishahs, diyat or ta'zir among others to: Apostate, Rebel, Zina, Qadzaf (Allegations Zina), Steal (Corruption), Rob (Corruption), Murder.

The Use of the Death Penalty

1969 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter C. Reckless
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Dramatic Reduction ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Discernible Effect ◽  
The World ◽  
Important Trend

Undoubtedly the most important trend in capital punishment has been the dramatic reduction in the number of offenses statutorily punishable by the death penalty. About two hundred years ago England had over two hundred offenses calling for the death penalty; it now has four. Some countries have abolished capital punishment completely; a few retain it for unusual offenses only. The trend throughout the world, even in the great number of countries that retain the death penalty, is definitely toward a de facto, not a de jure, form of abolition. In the United States, where the death penalty is possible in three-fourths of the states, the number of executions has declined from 199 in 1935 to an average of less than three in the last four years. This change is related to public sentiment against the use of the death penalty and even more directly to the unwillingness of juries and courts to impose a first-degree sentence. The increasing willingness of governors to commute a death sentence and of courts to hear appeals also contributes to this decline. A review of the evidence indicates that use of the death penalty has no discernible effect on the commission of capital offenses (especially murder).

Intelligent and Civilized Sentiments

Lethal State ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 111-152
Author(s):  
Seth Kotch
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
State Law ◽  
Death Row ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Death Row Inmates ◽  
History Of ◽  
Tangible Result

This chapter tells the history of some of the elements that contributed to the declining use of the death penalty in North Carolina. Journalist Nell Battle Lewis railed against the practice as racist, un-Christian, and barbaric. Paul Green echoed those sentiments as he campaigned to save death row inmates from death. Yet their activism had little tangible result. More significant was a change in state law that allowed juries to formally recommend mercy following a conviction, meaning that judges were no longer required to deliver mandatory death sentences. The end of the mandatory death sentences ended executions, which ceased in 1961 and would not resume until 1984.

Federation of Malaysia

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-158
Author(s):  
Daniel Pascoe
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
The State ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Explanatory Factors ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

As with Chapters 3 and 4, the case study on Malaysia begins with a thorough description of the country’s death penalty laws and practice, and Malaysia’s publicly known clemency practice over the period under analysis (1991–2016). Thereafter, for both the Malaysian (Chapter 5) and Indonesian (Chapter 6) cases, the potential explanatory factors for clemency incidence are more complex than for Thailand and Singapore, given these two jurisdictions’ more moderate rates of capital clemency and fluctuating political policies on capital punishment over time. Available statistics suggest that Malaysia’s clemency rate is moderately high, at between 55 and 63 per cent of finalized capital cases. Malaysia is a federal state where pardons are granted by the hereditary rulers or appointed state governors in state-based cases, or by the Malaysian king (Yang di-Pertuan Agong) in federal and security cases, all on the advice of specially constituted Pardons Boards. Chapter 5 presents the following two explanations for Malaysia’s restrictions on death penalty clemency: prosecutorial/judicial discretion and detention without trial in capital cases, and the Federal Attorney-General’s constitutional role on the State and Federal Pardons Boards. As to why Malaysia’s clemency rate has not then fallen to the miniscule level seen in neighbouring Singapore (with both nations closely comparable, as they were once part of the same Federation of Malaya), Chapter 5 points to the relevant paperwork placed before each Pardons Board, the merciful role played by the Malay monarchy, and the impact of excessively long stays on death row before clemency decisions are reached.

Death and Dignity in American Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
American Law ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
The Law

Dignity serves many purposes in American law, but the concept is perhaps most vital in decisions on the death penalty. Since 1972, when the Supreme Court briefly banned capital punishment, American jurists have debated whether death sentences violate “the dignity of man.” These legal debates describe dignity as an innately human attribute and a core feature of human nature. In practice, however, courts employ dignity to instantiate a particular model of democratic governance. Legal cases on the death penalty treat dignity as a fundamentally relational concept, less a characteristic of personhood than a state of existing in dialogue with the law. This vision of dignity is more institutional and alienable than conceptions that emphasize unwavering worth. Ultimately, the approach to dignity in death penalty cases displaces an individuated account of the term and raises a basic question about whether dignity can exist in the absence of the law.

Save the Death Penalty for the Most Culpable Offenders

1993 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-372
Author(s):  
Michael B. Ross
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Mentally Retarded ◽  
The State ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Controversial Topic

The death penalty is a controversial topic that continues to generate heated debate in our country. Polls show that the vast majority of Americans favor the use of capital punishment. In response, politicians both in Congress and in the state legislatures have proposed measures to expand our use of the death penalty and to speed up the rate of executions. However, while this “tough on crime” rhetoric is popular, we as Americans must be careful to see that those whom we do execute are in fact the most culpable of offenders. This article explores our past use of the death penalty and proposes that we implement certain protections for the least culpable of offenders: the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, and the juvenile.

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