The Sentence Is the Story

2018 ◽  
pp. 94-122
Author(s):  
Peggy Kamuf
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Recent History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

This chapter takes up Norman Mailer’s 1979 novel The Executioner’s Song as chronicle of the “modern death penalty” era post-Gregg v. Georgia. Two questions or issues frame my analysis: the relation between narrative structure in general and the death penalty plot; the distinction between execution and suicide. The first issue is explored with the help of narratologists, but especially Walter Benjamin. The second reviews Kant’s argument that “no one can will [capital] punishment” and Derrida’s remarks, contra Kant, on the undecidability of execution and suicide. The chapter concludes with a brief reading of Mailer’s 1964 poem of the same title as his novel and speculates on how these two texts read the recent history of the U.S. death penalty.

Drone Penalty

Killing Times ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 150-184
Author(s):  
David Wills
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Structural Space ◽  
Extrajudicial Killing ◽  
Criminal Conduct ◽  
The U.S

A different appropriation of the instant takes place in the case of extrajudicial killing by drones. That practice by the U.S., begun in 2002, has remained shrouded in secrecy. However one counts the victims, drone executions outnumber by a huge margin American judicial executions, and the drone penalty thus represents a particular paradigm of the American death penalty: for the most part out of sight and out of mind. It raises in turn questions about American democracy and the deadly criminal conduct of its foreign policy, but also produces a perspective that brings into focus the long series of historical relations between slavery and the death penalty, as well as lynching and the persistence of racism in the application of capital punishment. Furthermore, the sovereign secrecy of drone attacks produces a structural space shared by the U.S. president and the terrorist s/he attacks.

The History of Mitigation in Death Penalty Cases

2020 ◽  
pp. 34-45
Author(s):  
Russell Stetler
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Eighth Amendment ◽  
Mitigating Factors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Effective Representation ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses how the theory and practice of mitigation have evolved over more than four decades, thereby helping to define the modern death penalty era in the United States. Prior to 1976, juries generally made death penalty decisions in a unitary proceeding. Juries then had unfettered discretion to impose death sentences, and the results were so arbitrary that in 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all the existing death penalty statutes. In 1976, the Court approved new statutes that guided jurors’ discretion. The Court required individualized sentencing in which jurors could consider mitigating factors based on the diverse frailties of humankind. This broad definition of what might inspire juries to reject death was elaborated in succeeding decades in a series of decisions relying on the Eighth Amendment. Social workers and other nonlawyers became critical members of multidisciplinary capital defense teams providing effective representation under the Sixth Amendment.

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 Death Penalty

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall McGowen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
State Power ◽  
Dramatic Decline ◽  
History Of ◽  
Passionate Commitment ◽  
Unique Ability

Although the death penalty often appears a timeless question, the last three centuries have witnessed dramatic changes in the frequency and organization of capital punishment in Europe and America. This essay examines the history of the death penalty and how it has reflected changing social and judicial ideas. The punishment became a target of intense complaint in the eighteenth century, which led to a dramatic decline in its use and its disappearance from public view. Yet while abolition excited passionate commitment, other groups remained committed to the retention of the death penalty, seeing it as vital to the security of society as well as a legitimate expression of a healthy emotion. The fortunes of abolition or retention have been shaped by political developments in particular nations at different times, and the penalty retains a unique ability to condense and channel powerful sentiments about the nature and goals of state power.

The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of the Death Penalty in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 299-315
Author(s):  
Carol S. Steiker ◽  
Jordan M. Steiker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
History Of Race ◽  
Western Democracies

This review addresses four key issues in the modern (post-1976) era of capital punishment in the United States. First, why has the United States retained the death penalty when all its peer countries (all other developed Western democracies) have abolished it? Second, how should we understand the role of race in shaping the distinctive path of capital punishment in the United States, given our country's history of race-based slavery and slavery's intractable legacy of discrimination? Third, what is the significance of the sudden and profound withering of the practice of capital punishment in the past two decades? And, finally, what would abolition of the death penalty in the United States (should it ever occur) mean for the larger criminal justice system?

scholarly journals Le syndrome de la femme fatale : « Matricide » et représentation féminine au Québec, 1898-1940

Criminologie ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Bernier ◽  
André Cellard
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Specific Role ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Femme Fatale ◽  
History Of

Between 1867 and 1976, when the death penalty was abolished in Canada, sixteen women faced the death penalty in Québec for their crime. Five of them found guilty for murdering their husband. In a period where women had a specific role of spouse and mother, the murder of the husband was seen as the worst crime possible because it was seen as a transgression of their roles as women, wife and mother. This article examines the discourses of the judges and prosecutors in the trials of Québec women accused of killing their husbands. The authors tried to find common themes between these trials and clues that could explain why out of the five women executed in the recent history of Québec, four of them were for the same reason, because they had kill their husbands.

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 Recent History of Upgrades to the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin J. Murphy ◽  
John A. Cramer ◽  
Ryan K. Said
Keyword(s):  
Detection Efficiency ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Central Processor ◽  
Central Processing ◽  
Lightning Detection ◽  
History Of ◽  
Location Algorithm ◽  
The U.S

AbstractThe U.S. National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) underwent a complete sensor upgrade in 2013 followed by a central processor upgrade in 2015. These upgrades produced about a factor-of-five improvement in the detection efficiency of cloud lightning flashes and about one additional cloud pulse geo-located per flash. However, they also re-aggravated a historical problem with the tendency to misclassify a population of low-current positive discharges as cloud-to-ground strokes when, in fact, most are probably cloud pulses. Furthermore, less than 0.1% of events were poorly geo-located because the contributing sensor data were either improperly associated or simply under-utilized by the geo-location algorithm. To address these issues, Vaisala developed additional improvements to the central processing system, which became operational on November 7, 2018. This paper describes updates to the NLDN between 2013-2018 and then focuses on the effects of classification algorithm changes and a simple means to normalize classification across upgrades.

scholarly journals Capital Sentencing: The Effect of Adding Aggravators to Death Penalty Statutes in Pennsylvania

2004 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Schultz Newman ◽  
Eric Rayz ◽  
Scott Eric Friedman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Statistical Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Capital Sentencing ◽  
Detailed History ◽  
Current State ◽  
History Of

The birthplace of the American republic—the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania—has historically been at the forefront of the capital punishment legislation in the United States. It was the first colony in the Union to abolish the death penalty for all crimes with the exception of murder. It was the first to set forth a statutory distinction between different degrees of criminal homicide, confining imposition of capital punishment to the most chilling form of this crime—“willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing.” With this storied history in mind, we have undertaken the task of examining the current state of the death penalty in the Commonwealth. Hence, in Part II of this Article, we set forth a detailed history of the capital sentencing scheme in Pennsylvania. Part III undertakes a statistical study of the imposition of the death penalty in the Commonwealth from 1978 until 1997. In Part IV, we conclude by summing up our general observations.

Tarakkvlkv (Land of Palms)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

The recent history of the Brighton reservation is contained in the settlement patterns of the camps established by the various groups moving onto lands of a hostile government. Collective memory is transferred through oral histories, but the patterns that emerge can be viewed through a broad temporal lens to reveal the sociocultural motivations of the broader population. The location of camps near the periphery of the reservation in the early years speaks to the mistrust of the families concerned about the ease of escape should they find themselves in peril from the U.S. government. Two decades later the clustering of camps near schools, roads, and trading stores demonstrates a transition and connectedness to the non-Seminole world. These years were certainly formative in the history of the Tribe. GIS is the tool the THPO uses to draw together oral history and archaeological information in the telling of these important stories.

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