Death Penalty and Social Aspects That Surround It

Introduction

This speech research is based on seven articles in different journals that discuss the death penalty and social aspects that surround it. These articles describe the history of the death penalty, its process of application as well as reasons for its application. They also discuss the pros and cons of the death penalty.

Sources

Articles

The Death Penalty: An American History

This essay looks at capital punishment in the American correction system. It looks at the development of the death penalty through out American history and the justifications normally given to support capital punishment. The essay also explores how the death penalty is administered and its execution protocols in the American justice system based on Stuart Banners’ The Death Penalty: An American History (2002) book.

The author of this essay, James Acker is a Professor at the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany. With Charles Lanier, he is co-director of the Capital Punishment Research Initiative at the University at Albany, an organization consisting of student volunteers and a shoestring budget devoted to research and education about the death penalty. He earned his law degree at Duke University and his PhD at the University at Albany. He has written extensively about the death penalty. With Robert Bohm and Charles Lanier, he is co-editor of America’s Experiment With Capital Punishment: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of the Ultimate Penal Sanction (Carolina Academic Press, 1998).

 

Estimating the Impact of the Death Penalty on Murder

 

This is a papers review that assesses the impact of the death penalty on murder. The paper looks at the reaction of potential murderers to the legalization of the death penalty. The paper also looks at other determinant factors such as the number of executions in a state, the number of murders that lead to a death penalty as well as the types of murders that warrant death penalties.

 

This paper review is done by John J. Donohue, III, Yale Law School, and Justin Wolfers, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. The former has been a professor of law in both Stanford and Yale universities. He is currently the president of American law and economics association and co-edits the associations’ journal. He is known for using empirical analysis to determine the impact of law and public policy in many disciplines. The later on the other hand is an Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania.

 

An Examination of Social-Psychological Factors and Support for the Death Penalty: Attribution, Moral Disengagement, and the Value-Expressive Function of Attitudes

 

This article is based on a study on the socio-psychological factors that attribute to those attitudes of individuals that support the death penalty. The study also examines the flaws that these individuals see in the death penalty system and whether these flaws affect their opinion on the death penalty. The study further looks at Value-expressiveness and its impact on these individuals.

 

This study was carried out and the article written by two authors, Scott Vollum, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Justice Studies at James Madison University. His current research interests include death penalty attitudes, violence in prison, and violence against animals. His recent work has been published in several journals including, Contemporary Justice Review, The Prison Journal, Justice Quarterly and Violence and Victims. On the other hand, Jacqueline Buffington-Vollum, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Justice Studies at James Madison University and a licensed clinical psychologist in forensic private practice. She has published on risk for institutional violence and death penalty issues, in such journals as Law and Human Behavior, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and Justice Quarterly

 

The Undermining Influence of the Federal Death Penalty on Capital Policymaking and Criminal Justice Administration in the States

 

This article looks at the dynamic relationship between the federal death penalty, administration of criminal justice and capital sentencing. This type of death penalty is used to in states that do not have the death sentence, where the prosecution has resulted in a sentence less than the death sentence and where the sentence has been overturned. The article pits this against the backdrop of the constitution. This article looks at the American federal government and its role in state sentences such as the death penalty.

The author of this article, Eileen M. Connor, JD, is a Proskauer Special Litigation Attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group. She is also an active lawyer and a former member of John J. Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest Law, Gibbons P.C. She has also been involved in the publication of an article titled "The Undermining Influence of the Federal Death Penalty on Capital Policymaking and Criminal Justice Administration in the States," The Journal of Law & Criminology, June 7, 2010.

An Overview of the Death Penalty and Capital Trials: History, Current Status, Legal Procedures, and Cost

The article looks at the history of the death penalty in America as well as the American system of jurisprudence. The article also presents a detailed examination of one issue that frequently surfaces in discussions of capital punishment, which is the financial cost of the death penalty and its attendant procedures. This article also examines the death penalty and capital trials from the perspective of social science.

 

Mark Costanzo and Lawrence T. White author this article. MARK COSTANZO is an associate professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College and the Claremont Graduate School. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1986. His research interests include social cognition and human communication. He is especially interested in the application of social-psychological research and theory to environmental issues, the legal system, and education. He is currently serving as co-organizer (with Stuart Oskamp) of the Claremont Symposium on Applied Social Psychology and as co-editor of the book series based on the symposium. LAWRENCE T. WHITE received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1984. He is currently an associate professor and the chair of psychology at Beloit College in Wisconsin. His research interests include the questioning of child witnesses and capital penalty trials.

 

Limiting Death Raw Appeals: Final Justice

This article looks at the current state of death row and the death sentence in America. It looks at the statistical numbers of inmates on death raw as well as how this statistics affect both the inmates and there loved ones. The article focuses on expert opinion of people who are experts in studies that deal with the death penalty.

Mark Hansen who was then a reporter of the journal authored this article, which, featured in the ABA journal. He is currently a senior writer, joined the ABA Journal staff in 1991. He had worked as a reporter for the Palm Beach Review, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and as a long-range planner for Manatee County, Fla. Mark earned his B.A. in political science and history from the University of Michigan. In the article, he incorporated expert opinion from leading death penalty scholars such as Viviane Burger.

Informative speech

This speech will look at the history of death penalty in America. It will also look at the figures that result from this type of execution as well as the methods used in execution of this sentence. The speech also touches on the crimes that warrant the death penalty as well as the role of the courts and government on this topic.

Key word outline

Death penalty. Execution. Murder. Death raw. Federal death penalty.

Death penalty

George Kendall experienced the very first case of sentencing by death penalty in America in 1608. He had been sentenced for spying for the Spanish and was executed by a firing squad in colonial Virginia. Since then it has been documented that to date, there have been roughly 20,000 court ordered executions on the American soil. Well over a third of those capital sentences were carried out during the 20th century, including 4,457 since 1930, when the federal government began collecting execution data (Acker, 2003).

 

For almost a decade after that, executioners could be said to have taken a break because the number of executions went down owing to the fact that there were litigation contesting the death penalty’s legality. This changed in 1976 when the Supreme Court authorized states to resume carrying out death sentences under new laws enacted to correct constitutional deficiencies identified four years earlier.

 

Currently the only crime that carries a death penalty in America is murder. However, the law clearly states that not just any form of murder warrants death as a sentence. Under the different criminal jurisdictions in the U.S, that allow the death sentence, the convicted person must have committed first-degree murder or what some states term as capital murder.

 

By 1992, America had 2,500 prisoners on death raw (Hansen, 1992). This numbers have continued going up over the years and the number as of October 2012 was at 3,146. To date polls show that crime is the number one fear in America and in fact more Americans prefer the death penalty as a form of sentencing.

 

Originally, the death penalty was executed by way of the firing squad or by hanging. However, over the years, these forms of execution have shifted to other forms of execution such as the electric chair and the recent and most preferred death by lethal injection. Whichever method of execution used, the bottom line is that at the end of the day the convicted person dies for committing a crime.

 

Currently 36 out of 50 states in America still execute the death penalty in their jurisdictions. Although the other remaining states do not have the death penalty in their respective jurisdictions, the federal government has made it possible to extend this jurisdiction by introducing the federal death penalty (Connor, 2010). This gives federal courts the power to meet out the death penalty to any American irrespective of the state in which the crime was committed.

 

 

Persuasive speech

This speech looks at the attitude of Americans towards the death penalty. It also touches on the effects these attitude has on court decisions on the matter. The speech futher outlines the effects the death penalty has on murder as a crime and the pro and cons of having the death penalty in the American criminal jurisdiction.

 

Key word outline

Death penalty. Attitude. Effect on murder. Advantages and disadvantages.

 

Death penalty

 

Throughout its history, the death penalty and its practice have been intertwined with public opinion in the U.S. The Death penalty policy has often been tied to public support and attitudes surrounding its use. Americans fear crime the most therefore most of them would prefer for there to be death penalties to try to curb this crime, especially those of the violent type. The Supreme Court has also been invoking public opinion when considering death penalty statutes and procedure ( Vollum et. al, 2010). In short, public opinion is one of the central factors underpinning death penalty policy and administration in the United States.

 

Over the years, support of the death penalty in America has reduced but not diminished. Research shows that when death penalty support is based on retribution or retributive ideals it will be less likely to diminish regardless of whether one is informed or aware of the realities of the death penalty. However, some more recent research has found that those with retributive attitudes regarding capital punishment were no more resistant to change in their death penalty support.

With all its support or lack of, the fact remains that Americans appreciate the death penalty. However, does the fact that the there is a death penalty affect the crime of which it is its sentence? A survey carried out on seventy past presidents of the academic criminology associations asking them “on the basis of their knowledge of the literature and research in criminology” whether the death penalty lowered the murder rate. It was found that only eight of these eminent criminologists responded affirmatively to the statement that “the death penalty acts as a deterrent to the commitment of murder—that it lowers the murder rate,” while fifty-six (or 84%) argued against deterrence (Donohue & Wolfers, 2009).

 

Other than the fact that the death penalty has been found not to effectively reduce the crime of which it was originally designed to punish, there also other disadvantages of the death penalty. These include the fact that the death penalty does not rehabilitate the offenders and is expensive for the state to bear the costs. Research in fact shows that the crime rate of that particular crime goes up in the weeks after the publication of an execution. It has also been found that some executions are of innocent people. This occurs due to a wrong conviction that cannot be changed after the execution since the individual is already dead.

 

 

However, there are also advantages of the death penalty. There is a sense of safety because the criminal has been removed from the streets, most of these criminals tend to be violent and would commit the crime again if left alone. Some of the crimes committed are usually so gruesome that the only way they can be atoned for is by death. This allows the family a sense of justice and vengeance for their loved ones. It is also believed that a punishment for a crime should be equal to the crime committed; therefore, using logic the appropriate crime for murder should be death (Vollum, 2010).

In the end whether one supports or is against the death penalty, the American law has firmly entrenched this type of punishment into the legal system. As long as the public opinion on the matter is strong, even if by a small group of individuals, the death penalty is here to stay in America.

 

References

ACKER, J. (2003). THE DEATH PENALTY: AN AMERICAN HISTORY. Contemporary Justice Review, 6(2), 169-187.

CONNOR, E. M. (2010). THE UNDERMINING INFLUENCE OF THE FEDERAL DEATH PENALTY ON CAPITAL POLICYMAKING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE   ADMINISTRATION IN THE STATES. Journal Of Criminal Law & Criminology,100(1), 149-211.

Costanzo, M., & White, L. T. (1994). An Overview of the Death Penalty and Capital Trials: History, Current Status, Legal Procedures, and Cost. Journal Of Social Issues, 50(2), 1-      18.

Donohue, J., & Wolfers, J. (2009). Estimating the Impact of the Death Penalty on Murder. American Law And Economics Review, 11(2), 249-309.

Hansen, M. (1992). FINAL JUSTICE. ABA Journal, 78(3), 64.

Vollum, S., & Buffington-Vollum, J. (2010). An Examination of Social-Psychological Factors and Support for the Death Penalty: Attribution, Moral Disengagement, and the Value-   Expressive Function of Attitudes. American Journal Of Criminal Justice, 35(1/2), 15-36.          doi:10.1007/s12103-009-9068-0