Death Penalty Annotated Bibliography

Death Penalty+ Annotated Bibliography

It has been theorized and even proven that many laws that are in place in America are the product of JudeoChristian religious beliefs, practices and writings, that have over the years been toned down to better meet the needs and standards of the U.S. society. There is a clear sense that some penalties for breaking the law have little if any effect on crime committed in the future, i.e. act as deterrents to crime and penalties for crime range from paying small fines to capital punishment. Opponents of capital punishment have always claimed that it does not deter crime while proponents have claimed that it does. Opponents have also claimed that the death penalty is a violation of the 8th amendment, cruel and unusual punishment and that it does not belong in any civilized society. Proponents on the other hand state that it is important to retain the death penalty for the crime of murder as this crime should be answered with death of the convicted. The debate over capital punishment will likely rage on for a very long time, as there seems to be no end to the evidence and theory surrounding it, but it is time for this nation to accelerate the debate and come to terms with the fact that it is the only western democratic nation that retains the death penalty and that if it is going to continue it needs to more clearly know why.

Remaining in this millennium are scant arguments in favor of capital punishment. The only one that in fact comes to mind is an old adage that argues that the only punishment for the taking of a life or lives is the taking of the life of the individual who knowingly took the life of another. While, on the other hand arguments against capital punishment seem to multiply as the years go by. The least fitting but still timely of those arguments is that the United States is the last Democratic developed nation in the world that still employs capital punishment. Nearly all of the international human rights organizations, many of whom the U.S. is an active, sometimes founding but influential member boast rhetoric that places capital punishment in high disdain, with goals of eradicating it in all the nations of the world. (Joyce, 1961, p. 196) The remaining arguments are grounded and logical. Capital punishment is not a deterrent (and in fact may encourage certain acts). Capital punishment is costly, with regard to legal costs of the state to employ and utilize all appeals options for any individual who has been sentenced to death. Zimring, the author of a book that explores the seemed contradiction of the U.S. acceptance of the death penalty suggests that reasons for the "process" associated with the death penalty and all its appeals is reconciliation for the fact that it is still accepted and legal, a sort of, if we are going to do it we are going to make sure to do it in the most ethical way possible sort of argument. (2003, p.89-118) Capital punishment is employed disproportionately among the races, and those of low socioeconomic status, just as incarceration in general is and lastly capital punishment, (Joyce, 1961, p. 152) by almost any definition constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Capital punishment does not in most case provide resolution for families and individuals who have lost a member or a loved one to murder.

To fully explore the arguments in favor of capital punishment is difficult, as the proponents of the practice often fall back on the biblical, retribution-based idea that one should take an eye for an eye, even though such arguments no longer hold weight in any other area. We no longer feel it appropriate in the modern era to take the hand of a thief, castrate a rapist or any other similar options and yet the death penalty remains as an eye for an eye ideological action. It is also clear that very few of these proponents have witnessed the execution of an individual or had cause to be involved, in any way, in a death penalty case. It also must be said that it is unlikely that many of these proponents have any real understanding of the fundamental detractions associated with the death penalty, not the least of which is the fact that it is likely a non-deterrent. One could also argue with regard to deterrence that even in some cases, such as cases of death by cop, where individuals lead police officers into situations where they are obligated to shoot them could occur in a death penalty situation as well. There have been murderers on death row who have demanded the death penalty and refused to file appeals because the goal of their crimes was to be their own death and they did not expect it to take so long. In fact this is a phenomena that represents 1 in 10 death row inmates. "Since capital punishment was reinstated in the U.S. In 1976 after almost a decade, 130 inmates have "volunteered" to be executed before exhausting all appeal rights. This represents one in 10 of the more than 1,100 executed in the U.S. In this period. Five of the 14 states which resumed executions after 1977 - Connecticut, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania - have yet to execute a "non-volunteer." (Carter, 2008) It is also important to note that even those who "volunteer" to be executed before appeals are exhausted must first prove to a judge that they are competent to wave their appeals. (Carter, 2008)

Amnesty International indicates that 111 nations have abolished the death penalty either as a matter of formal law or actual practice. According to Amnesty International, 84 nations retain the death penalty. All European nations have abolished capital punishment with the exceptions of Armenia and the Russian Federation, which Amnesty International lists as being abolitionist in practice since 1996. All Latin American nations, except Cuba and Guatemala, have abolished the death penalty either as a matter of formal law or actual practice. South Africa, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are also among the nations that have abolished the death penalty. See Amnesty International, Death Penalty: Abolitionist and Retentionist Countries, at http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/abret2.html (last visited Mar. 31, 2004). The United States Department of Justice listed 3557 persons under sentence of death in the United States as of 2002. That number had grown from 134 in 1973, the year after the Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), which overturned all then-existing death sentences. (Cottrol 1641)

Another issue that requires serious thought, debate and discussion is the disproportionate manner in which death sentences and therefore death penalties are handed out in the U.S. According to Tonry's research incarceration rates for blacks were seven times greater than for those of whites in 1991 and these numbers seem to have grown since then. (4) Without the knowledge to do so an individual might assume that the crimes being committed by minorities are more severe than those being committed by whites and they therefore get tougher sentences, and yet the statistics do not show this, instead they show that crimes are roughly the same but inability to defend oneself and internal and external bias creates tougher sentencing for blacks than whites, almost regardless of the crime. (4) These statistics and trends are supported by other researchers. (Mauer, 1999, pp. 7,19) Economics rule the day when it comes to criminal defense and if an individual is unable to pay for an attorney to help defend and deal with the system they are much less likely to be able to reduce sentencing outcomes, regardless of the stated social responsibility of the U.S. To provide council for those who cannot afford it. (Babcock, 2006) The result is then a system that disproportionately applies the highest possible sentence to those who have the least ability to provide for themselves any defense that goes beyond the most limited offered by the state appointed defense attorneys, all of whom are overbooked and all of whom are underpaid. (Clark, 2010, p. 922) The case loads placed on these individuals almost guarantees that individuals who commit crimes will be offered plea deals and be encouraged to take them, as opposed to further taxing the system by trial and litigation fees. (Appleman, 2010) This system does often reduce the odds that an individual will receive the death penalty, as that is usually the bargaining piece associated with a plea deals. In such cases where capital punishment is on the docket, it does nearly guarantee that such options, if available for sentencing in the state in question will be applied when an individual chooses to exercise his or her right to a trial by jury a serious deterrent to defendants using the trial by jury system. "The guilty plea now disposes of approximately ninety-five percent of all criminal indictments -- a sign of its continuing popularity despite some considerable disquiet. Although many legal players seem to dislike the plea, few have taken on its reform." (Appleman, 2010, p. 732) Babcock, in an interview with a legal expert who had served as a public defender the legal expert,

Contemptuously, denounced the common advice, given by appointed lawyers without investigation or regard for the individual situation, to "earn consideration by 'saving the county expense,' and throw[ing] himself on the 'mercy of the court.'" (313) Foltz found this plea-bargaining disgusting: "[t]hink of the spectacle of a court remitting part of a criminal's legal punishment for a money consideration!! [sic] And yet who has not witnessed it?" (314) (Babcock, 2006, p. 1267)

Capital punishment seems to most people in the modern world to be the last vestiges of an older crueler time, and yet it is still an accepted tenet in the U.S., the birthplace of its most staunch international opponent, Amnesty International, whose goal it is to eradicate it as a viable option for crime punishment. Amnesty makes clear that its universal purpose is one that illuminates the death penalty for what it is, not necessarily in the U.S. But elsewhere, often a way to remove a problem from the population. This is often secondary to the crime itself, as Amnesty often proclaims that in most places the death penalty is openly utilized even against innocent or at the least innocuous offenders. In a poem discussing the debate of capital punishment Tom Disch, stresses the lack of resolution associated with capital punishment and gets to the core of the debate, in general:

But what of the more common case/When killer and victim share the same dismal/Horizon, when it's a toss-up which death/Would have represented the larger social benefit?/Should the state's iron boot be used to trample/The perp's soul till it yields some five or six/Thimbles of sympathy? Even then could we be sure/That a coerced remorse has its source/In anything more than the universal need/To appease one's torturers? We cannot, of course, (Disch, 1995, p. 189)

In other words it seems relatively ridiculous to assume that through the leveling of a human life remorse would be believed or legitimate. Capital punishment does not ensure that the individual being put to death can console those who are left behind, as nothing they do or say under duress can be believed. This is the same argument used effectively against human torture, as torture elicits results that are suspect to say the least as the individual being tortured breaks and often simply expounds whatever the torturer wishes to hear, to get out of the situation of torture. "The United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area.

.Click the link for more information. has legally executed nearly 15,000 people since colonial times; more than 7,700 of those have taken place in the 20th century. Currently, 38 states and the federal government have death penalty statutes and nearly 3,600 inmates reside on death row in prisons across the country." (Vila & Morris, 1997, p. 337) It must also be noted that every process associated with the legal timeline of a death row case, as they are called, including the actual execution is another reminder to the family and friends of the victim of both the extreme loss and usually the cruelty and base nature in which they died. This is in addition to the fact that each legal process also often brings the victims face-to-face with the killer of their loved one, conjuring up complicated and tugging emotions ranging from sympathy for the actual killer or his family to utter rage and the desire to commit homicide against him or her. There is nothing about this process, for most victims that exemplify healing, reconciliation or closure. In a Washington Post article where the reporter interviewed several victims who had witnessed executions of their family member's murder most noted that it did not provide peace from anything but the legal process, "They exit the room with most of the ache they brought in." Some witnesses even expressed certain anger with witnessing the act as they felt that the peaceful manner in which the murderer died usually decades after the crime was nothing comparable to the brutality that ended the life of their loved one. (Montgomery, 2009)