Death Penalty Information Center Arguments Against
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Chapter 20 Capital Punishment
The State of Criminal Justice 2016 237 CHAPTER 20 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Ronald J. Tabak* I. OVERVIEW A. Recent Trends 1. 33% Further Drop in New Death Sentences, Mostly Imposed in a Few Jurisdictions The number of death penalties imposed in the United States in 2015 dropped by 33% from the previous year.1 Death sentences reached their annual peak at 315 in 1996.2 In 2010, 114 people were sentenced to death, the lowest number since 1973, the first full year that states began reintroducing capital punishment following Furman v. Georgia.3 In 2011, the number dropped considerably, to 85. The numbers were slightly lower in the next two years: 82 in 2012 and 83 in 2013.4 Then, in 2014, the number dropped to 73.5 In 2015, the Death Penalty Information Center estimated that the number of new death sentences had dropped precipitously further, to 49. While that number is subject to revision by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it reflects a decline of approximately 33% in one year and another new low in the post-Furman era.6 More than half of all death sentences in 2015 reported by the Death Penalty Information Center were in California (14), Florida (9), and Alabama (6), with all but one of California’s death sentences coming from four counties in Southern California. This was the eighth consecutive year in which Texas’ total was under a dozen – falling to just two – well below its prior yearly totals (which peaked in 1999 at 48).7 Georgia was one of the many states that did not impose any new death sentences in 2015. -
Death in America Under Color of Law: Our Long, Inglorious Experience with Capital Punishment
Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy Volume 13 | Issue 4 Article 1 Spring 2018 Death in America under Color of Law: Our Long, Inglorious Experience with Capital Punishment Rob Warden Center on Wrongful Convictions, Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Daniel Lennard Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP Recommended Citation Rob Warden and Daniel Lennard, Death in America under Color of Law: Our Long, Inglorious Experience with Capital Punishment, 13 Nw. J. L. & Soc. Pol'y. 194 (2018). https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njlsp/vol13/iss4/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy by an authorized editor of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Scholarly Commons. Copyright 2018 by Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law ` Vol. 13, Issue 4 (2018) Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy Death in America under Color of Law: Our Long, Inglorious Experience with Capital Punishment Rob Warden* and Daniel Lennard† The authors thank John Seasly and Sam Hart, Injustice Watch reporting fellows, for compiling data presented in the five appendices accompanying the article. INTRODUCTION What follows is a compilation of milestones in the American experience with capital punishment, beginning with the first documented execution in the New World under color of English law more than 400 years ago at Jamestown.1 The man who was executed, George Kendall, became first only because he had been (in the modern vernacular) “ratted out” by the man who otherwise would have been first.2 Maybe Kendall was guilty. -
UCLA Law Review Capital Punishment, Latinos, and the United States Legal System
U.C.L.A. Law Review Capital Punishment, Latinos, and the United States Legal System: Doing Justice or an Illusion of Justice, Legitimated Oppression, and Reinforcement of Structural Hierarchies Martin Guevara Urbina & Ilse Aglaé Peña ABSTRACT As the twenty-first century progresses, the influence of race, ethnicity, gender, and class in crime and punishment continues to be a pressing and polemic issue. With various antisocial control movements taking place, particularly in response to the Trump administration, the nature of crime and punishment is once again being redefined nationally and abroad. As in the past, this new punitive cycle of social control has revived support for what many consider to be the sanction of last resort: capital punishment. But executions, and capital punishment in general, are not directly governed by crime trends. Rather, the simultaneous interaction of historical and contemporary legacies, conflictive race and ethnic relations, and the influence of various extralegal factors like citizenship, nationality, language, accent, skin color, and economics influence the use of such punishment. The history of the death penalty in the United States is a story shaped and reshaped by the race and ethnicity of the offender and victim, and further fused by other intertwining factors at different points in time and geography. But because of the traditional adoption of a racially dichotomous black/white approach in investigating capital punishment, little is actually known about the experiences of executed Mexicans and other Latinos. As such, to debunk historical myths about the effects of race and ethnicity in capital punishment in the United States one needs to document the Mexican and Latino experiences which have been left out of the pages of history. -
Faith in Action Resource Guidebook 2006
FAITH IN ACTION RESOURCE GUIDEBOOK 2006 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA PROGRAM TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY WWW.AMNESTYUSA.ORG/FAITHINACTION/ Amnesty International Founded in London in 1961, Amnesty International (AI) is a Nobel Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with over one million members worldwide. Amnesty International undertakes research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights. AI is a worldwide campaigning movement that works to promote all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international standards. With its International Secretariat headquartered in London, AI has members and supporters in 162 countries and territories. Activities range from public demonstrations to letter writing, from human rights education to fundraising concerts, from individual appeals on a particular case to global campaigns on a specific human rights issue. AI is impartial and independent of any government, political persuasion or religious creed. It is financed primarily by subscriptions and donations from its worldwide membership. Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) is the U.S. Section of Amnesty International. Amnesty International USA’s Program to Abolish the Death Penalty The Program to Abolish the Death Penalty (PADP) works toward the abolition of the death penalty worldwide. Collaborating with departments such as Communications, Government Relations, and others, the PADP supports the work of Amnesty International’s Regional Offices, Regional/State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinators (R/SDPACs), and grassroots activists throughout the country by serving as a facilitator and clearinghouse for information and resources on the death penalty. -
Web Dp Report
Capital Punishment in Texas: Images of Injustice Emily Kozora Table of Contents A Brief Overview 3 Mortal Mistakes 4 Unreliable Witnesses 4 -Gary Graham 4 -Ruben Cantu 5 -Carlos DeLuna 6 Lack of Evidence 7 -Odell Barnes 7 -David Wayne Spence 8 Incompetent Experts 9 -Cases involving bad autopsy evidence 9 -Cases involving bad psychological testimony 10 -Cameron Willingham 11 Official Misconduct 12 -James Lee Beathard 12 -David Stoker 13 Inadequate Defense 14 -Carl Johnson 14 -Billy Conn Gardner 15 Protection for Texans 16 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? 16 A Deterrence? 17 Still Arbitrarily Administered? 18 Suggestions for Reform 19 An Interim Plan 22 Appendix A 23 A United States Perspective 23 A Worldwide Perspective 24 Appendix B 25 Cost of the death penalty 25 Work Cited 26 Contact and Researcher Information 35 2 A Brief Overview The issue of the death penalty can easily generate an array of emotions, especially within the state of Texas. However, evidence to advocate its continuance or abolition should not be based on emotional response. Instead, to fairly evaluate capital punishment, we must carefully review data that examines 4 all aspects of the system. While doing such research, one can find indications that the death penalty process in Texas has serious flaws. The faults of capital punishment have resulted in the wrongful imprisonment and execution of citizens of Texas and the degradation of our state in the eyes of many across the country. The feelings and trauma of the crime victims and their families obviously are a very important consideration. However, the death penalty offers only a false or temporary condolence to those victims while a never-ending cycle of violence continues.