Capital Offenses

Capital Offenses

Author: Simon Joyce

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780813921808

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By 1900 crime appears as a distinctively modern problem, requiring large-scale solutions and government intervention in place of an older approach rooted in personal morality or philanthropic paternalism.".


Federal Capital Offenses

Federal Capital Offenses

Author: Congressional Research Congressional Research Service

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2014-11-18

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13: 9781505203288

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Murder is a federal capital offense if committed in any of more than 50 jurisdictional settings. The Constitution defines the circumstances under which the death penalty may be considered a sentencing option. With an eye to those constitutional boundaries, the Federal Death Penalty Act and related statutory provisions govern the procedures under which the death penalty is imposed. Some defendants are ineligible for the death penalty regardless of the crimes with which they are accused. Children and those incompetent to stand trial may not face the death penalty; pregnant women and the mentally retarded may not be executed. There is no statute of limitations for murder, and the time constraints imposed by the due process and speedy trial clauses of the Constitution are rarely an impediment to prosecution. The decision to seek or forgo the death penalty in a federal capital case must be weighed by the Justice Department's Capital Review Committee and approved by the Attorney General. Defendants convicted of murder are death-eligible only if they are found at a separate sentencing hearing to have acted with life threatening intent. Among those who have, capital punishment may be imposed only if the sentencing jury unanimously concludes that the aggravating circumstances that surround the murder and the defendant outweigh the mitigating circumstances to an extent that justifies execution. The Federal Death Penalty Act provides several specific aggravating factors, such as murder of a law enforcement officer or multiple murders committed at the same time. It also permits consideration of any relevant "non-statutory aggravating factors." Impact on the victim's family and future dangerousness of the defendant are perhaps the most commonly invoked non-statutory aggravating factors. The jury must agree on the existence of at least one of the statutory aggravating factors if the defendant is to be sentenced to death. The Federal Death Penalty Act permits consideration of any relevant mitigating factor, and identifies a few, such as the absence of prior criminal record or the fact that a co-defendant, equally or more culpable, has escaped with a lesser sentence.


Deterrence and the Death Penalty

Deterrence and the Death Penalty

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2012-05-26

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 0309254167

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Many studies during the past few decades have sought to determine whether the death penalty has any deterrent effect on homicide rates. Researchers have reached widely varying, even contradictory, conclusions. Some studies have concluded that the threat of capital punishment deters murders, saving large numbers of lives; other studies have concluded that executions actually increase homicides; still others, that executions have no effect on murder rates. Commentary among researchers, advocates, and policymakers on the scientific validity of the findings has sometimes been acrimonious. Against this backdrop, the National Research Council report Deterrence and the Death Penalty assesses whether the available evidence provides a scientific basis for answering questions of if and how the death penalty affects homicide rates. This new report from the Committee on Law and Justice concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates. The key question is whether capital punishment is less or more effective as a deterrent than alternative punishments, such as a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Yet none of the research that has been done accounted for the possible effect of noncapital punishments on homicide rates. The report recommends new avenues of research that may provide broader insight into any deterrent effects from both capital and noncapital punishments.


A Comparative Analysis of Capital Punishment

A Comparative Analysis of Capital Punishment

Author: Rita James Simon

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9780739120910

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A Comparative Analysis of Capital Punishment provides a concise and detailed history of the death penalty. Incorporating and synthesizing public opinion data and empirical studies, Simon and Blaskovich's work compares, across societies, the offense types punishable by death, the level of public support for the death penalty, the forms the penalty takes, and the categories of persons exempt from punishment. It examines the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent to violent offenses, especially homicide, the extent to which innocent persons have become the victims of capital punishment, and occurrences of state sponsored genocide and democide. This book is a practical and useful tool for public policy makers, criminal justice practitioners, students, and anyone who seeks to better understand the worldwide debate on this controversial social issue.


Comparative Capital Punishment

Comparative Capital Punishment

Author: Carol S. Steiker

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 1786433257

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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.


Women and Capital Punishment in the United States

Women and Capital Punishment in the United States

Author: David V. Baker

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-11-26

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 1476622884

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The history of the execution of women in the United States has largely been ignored and scholars have given scant attention to gender issues in capital punishment. This historical analysis examines the social, political and economic contexts in which the justice system has put women to death, revealing a pattern of patriarchal domination and female subordination. The book includes a discussion of condemned women granted executive clemency and judicial commutations, an inquiry into women falsely convicted in potentially capital cases and a profile of the current female death row population.


Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment

Author: James A. McCafferty

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 1351530194

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Numerous people face legal execution in the United States. Their presence in death rows throughout the country refutes a basic premise of our judicial system, for the use of capital punishment denies the existence of universal rehabilitation. There is another paradox-juries continue to sentence men and women to death; yet few ever get executed. Whether one is for or against capital punishment, one cannot approach the issue without deep emotion and conviction. James McCafferty provides an even-tempered, eminently reasonable discussion of the issue with balanced commentary from both sides of the debate. McCafferty presents not only empirical data and analyses of the nature of capital punishment, but provides perspectives on the larger issues of our approach to lawbreakers and their rehabilitation. The claims of both those who want to retain capital punishment and those who want to abolish it are included. The arguments consider whether capital punishment deters crime as well as the question of discrimination. A wealth of references, an extremely useful bibliography, and a final chapter delineating the legal issues facing the courts at the time the book was originally published in 1972 complete this unusually incisive and balanced study. Capital Punishment remains an important volume in the field of criminal justice. It seeks to educate rather than propagandize. It is intended for use in numerous courses in sociology and political science as well as in law schools. Anyone wishing to gain a perspective on what remains a controversial issue more than thirty years later would be well advised to study this work by world-class scholars.