This collection asks questions about the received wisdom of the debate about capital punishment. Woven through the book, questions are asked of, and remedies proposed for, a raft of issues identified as having been overlooked in the traditional discourse. It provides a long overdue review of the disparate groups and strategies that lay claim to abolitionism. The authors argue that capital litigators should use their skills challenging the abuses not just of process, but of the conditions in which the condemned await their fate, namely prison conditions, education, leisure, visits, medical services, etc. In the aftermath of successful constitutional challenges it is the beneficiaries (arguably those who are considered successes, having been ’saved’ from the death penalty and now serving living death penalties of one sort or another) who are suffering the cruel and inhumane alternative. Part I of the book offers a selection of diverse, nuanced examinations of death penalty phenomena, scrutinizing complexities frequently omitted from the narrative of academics and activists. It offers a challenging and comprehensive analysis of issues critical to the abolition debate. Part II offers examinations of countries usually absent from academic analysis to provide an understanding of the status of the debate locally, with opportunities for wider application.

Over a career spanning nearly four decades, Rick Unklesbay has tried over one hundred murder cases before juries that ended with sixteen men and women receiving the death sentence. Arbitrary Death depicts some of the most horrific murders in Tucson, Arizona, the author's prosecution of those cases, and how the death penalty was applied. It provides the framework to answer the questions: Why is America the only Western country to still use the death penalty? Can a human-run system treat those cases fairly and avoid unconstitutional arbitrariness? It is an insider's view from someone who has spent decades prosecuting murder cases and who now argues that the death penalty doesn't work and our system is fundamentally flawed. With a rational, balanced approach, Unklesbay depicts cases that represent how different parts of the criminal justice system are responsible for the arbitrary nature of the death penalty and work against the fair application of the law. The prosecution, trial courts, juries, and appellate courts all play a part in what ultimately is a roll of the dice as to whether a defendant lives or dies. Arbitrary Death is for anyone who wonders why and when its government seeks to legally take the life of one of its citizens. It will have you questioning whether you can support a system that applies death as an arbitrary punishment -- and often decades after the sentence was given.

The fifth edition of this highly praised study charts and explains the progress that continues to be made towards the goal of worldwide abolition of the death penalty. The majority of nations have now abolished the death penalty and the number of executions has dropped in almost all countries where abolition has not yet taken place. Emphasizing the impact of international human rights principles and evidence of abuse, the authors examine how this has fueled challenges to the death penalty and they analyze and appraise the likely obstacles, political and cultural, to further abolition. They discuss the cruel realities of the death penalty and the failure of international standards always to ensure fair trials and to avoid arbitrariness, discrimination and conviction of the innocent: all violations of the right to life. They provide further evidence of the lack of a general deterrent effect; shed new light on the influence and limits of public opinion; and argue that substituting for the death penalty life imprisonment without parole raises many similar human rights concerns. This edition provides a strong intellectual and evidential basis for regarding capital punishment as undeniably cruel, inhuman and degrading. Widely relied upon and fully updated to reflect the current state of affairs worldwide, this is an invaluable resource for all those who study the death penalty and work towards its removal as an international goal.

Searching inquiry into the contours of capital punishment in America. Containing over 1300 footnotes, the chapters by ten young scholars explore the sometimes-ignored fine details of the death penalty. Topics include the impropriety of applying the death penalty to felony murder, the implications of death row exonerations and their impact on access to post-conviction DNA testing, media impacts on capital cases, death qualification of capital juries and its impact on the right of prospective capital jurors to enjoy First Amendment protection of the free exercise of their religions, the fiscal conservative and social conservative argument favoring abolition of the death penalty, the need for a heightened standard of proof - greater than beyond a reasonable doubt - at the penalty phase of capital trials, federal habeas corpus protections for state-sentenced capital offenders and the constitutionality of limits on "actual innocence" equitable tolling, tips and techniques for capital defense counsel representing defendants who were acutely substance-impaired at the time of the crime or have a history of chronic substance abuse or chemical dependency, the impropriety of allowing counsel to argue fiscal matters to the jury, such as that either execution or life imprisonment is the "cheapest" option for society, and the role the death penalty should and does play within the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Arising out of a Death Penalty Seminar, and much more than a mere re-hashing of the arguments favoring and opposing the death penalty, this volume presents scholarship intended to help fuel the capital punishment debate in America.

Where Justice and Mercy Meet: Catholic Opposition to the Death Penalty comprehensively explores the Catholic stance against capital punishment in new and important ways. The broad perspective of this book has been shaped in conversation with the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty, as well as through the witness of family members of murder victims and the spiritual advisors of condemned inmates. The book offers the reader new insight into the debates about capital punishment; provides revealing, and sometimes surprising, information about methods of execution; and explores national and international trends and movements related to the death penalty. It also addresses how the death penalty has been intertwined with racism, the high percentage of the mentally disabled on death row, and how the death penalty disproportionately affects the poor. The foundation for the church's position on the death penalty is illuminated by discussion of the life and death of Jesus, Scripture, the Mass, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the teachings of Pope John Paul II. Written for concerned Catholics and other interested readers, the book contains contemporary stories and examples, as well as discussion questions to engage groups in exploring complex issues.

The U.S. death penalty is a peculiar institution, and a uniquely American one. Despite its comprehensive abolition elsewhere in the Western world, capital punishment continues in dozens of American states– a fact that is frequently discussed but rarely understood. The same puzzlement surrounds the peculiar form that American capital punishment now takes, with its uneven application, its seemingly endless delays, and the uncertainty of its ever being carried out in individual cases, none of which seem conducive to effective crime control or criminal justice. In a brilliantly provocative study, David Garland explains this tenacity and shows how death penalty practice has come to bear the distinctive hallmarks of America’s political institutions and cultural conflicts. America’s radical federalism and local democracy, as well as its legacy of violence and racism, account for our divergence from the rest of the West. Whereas the elites of other nations were able to impose nationwide abolition from above despite public objections, American elites are unable– and unwilling– to end a punishment that has the support of local majorities and a storied place in popular culture. In the course of hundreds of decisions, federal courts sought to rationalize and civilize an institution that too often resembled a lynching, producing layers of legal process but also delays and reversals. Yet the Supreme Court insists that the issue is to be decided by local political actors and public opinion. So the death penalty continues to respond to popular will, enhancing the power of criminal justice professionals, providing drama for the media, and bringing pleasure to a public audience who consumes its chilling tales. Garland brings a new clarity to our understanding of this peculiar institution– and a new challenge to supporters and opponents alike.

This collection asks questions about the received wisdom of the debate about capital punishment. Woven through the book, questions are asked of, and remedies proposed for, a raft of issues identified as having been overlooked in the traditional discourse. It provides a long overdue review of the disparate groups and strategies that lay claim to abolitionism. The authors argue that capital litigators should use their skills challenging the abuses not just of process, but of the conditions in which the condemned await their fate, namely prison conditions, education, leisure, visits, medical services, etc. In the aftermath of successful constitutional challenges it is the beneficiaries (arguably those who are considered successes, having been ’saved’ from the death penalty and now serving living death penalties of one sort or another) who are suffering the cruel and inhumane alternative. Part I of the book offers a selection of diverse, nuanced examinations of death penalty phenomena, scrutinizing complexities frequently omitted from the narrative of academics and activists. It offers a challenging and comprehensive analysis of issues critical to the abolition debate. Part II offers examinations of countries usually absent from academic analysis to provide an understanding of the status of the debate locally, with opportunities for wider application.

At the start of the twenty-first century, America is in the midst of a profound national reconsideration of the death penalty. There has been a dramatic decline in the number of people being sentenced to death as well as executed, exonerations have become common, and the number of states abolishing the death penalty is on the rise. The essays featured in The Road to Abolition? track this shift in attitudes toward capital punishment, and consider whether or not the death penalty will ever be abolished in America. The interdisciplinary group of experts gathered by Charles J. Ogletree Jr., and Austin Sarat ask and attempt to answer the hard questions that need to be addressed if the death penalty is to be abolished. Will the death penalty end only to be replaced with life in prison without parole? Will life without the possibility of parole become, in essence, the new death penalty? For abolitionists, might that be a pyrrhic victory? The contributors discuss how the death penalty might be abolished, with particular emphasis on the current debate over lethal injection as a case study on why and how the elimination of certain forms of execution might provide a model for the larger abolition of the death penalty.

Comparative Capital Punishment offers a set of in-depth, critical and comparative contributions addressing death practices around the world. Despite the dramatic decline of the death penalty in the last half of the twentieth century, capital punishment remains in force in a substantial number of countries around the globe. This research handbook explores both the forces behind the stunning recent rejection of the death penalty, as well as the changing shape of capital practices where it is retained. The expert contributors address the social, political, economic, and cultural influences on both retention and abolition of the death penalty and consider the distinctive possibilities and pathways to worldwide abolition.

Historically, at English common law, the death penalty was mandatory for the crime of murder and other violent felonies. Over the last three decades, however, many former British colonies have reformed their capital punishment regimes to permit judicial sentencing discretion, including consideration of mitigating factors. Applying a comparative analysis to the law of capital punishment, Novak examines the constitutional jurisprudence and resulting legislative reform in the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia, focusing on the rapid retreat of the mandatory death penalty in the Commonwealth over the last thirty years. The coordinated mandatory death penalty challenges - which have had the consequence of greatly reducing the world’s death row population - represent a case study of how a small group of lawyers can sponsor human rights litigation that incorporates international human rights law into domestic constitutional jurisprudence, ultimately harmonizing criminal justice regimes across borders. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the study and development of human rights and capital punishment, as well as those exploring the contours of comparative criminal justice.