当代美国的死刑制度

美国最高法院在1972年曾经宣布暂停死刑执行,但是在1976年又恢复了死刑的执行,目前美国是唯一仍然保留并适用死刑的所谓西方文明国家。美国联邦系统和38个州的刑法都规定了死刑,可以适用死刑的罪行还比较多,但是罪名相对比较集中;死刑诉讼程序严格且复杂;相对于美国庞大的犯罪数字,尤其是暴力犯罪而言,其死刑判决和实际执行死刑数量仍属较低;美国死刑执行方式呈现为以注射方式为主多种执行方法并存的特点。美国死刑程序复杂但是死刑错判率仍然较高。     

Community Risk Management of High-Risk Sex Offenders in Canada: Findings From a Quasi-Experimental Study

Although considerable controversy surrounds capital punishment, there is no disagreement about the injustice of executing innocent persons. While critics of the death penalty have cited the risk of executing the innocent as a reason for its abolition, adherents have dismissed the risk of error as negligible, if not inevitable, and insufficient reason to halt capital punishment. Still others have proposed or enacted reforms designed to minimize the risk of erroneous capital convictions and sentences and, hence, allow executions to go forward in deserving cases in which doubts about guilt have largely been eradicated. In this article, we examine the principled tensions that accompany attempts simultaneously to safeguard the innocent from execution while promoting the objectives of capital punishment. We focus, in particular, on reforms recently incorporated into Maryland’s death penalty law. We suggest that the existing tensions between protecting the innocent from execution and promoting the objectives of capital punishment are so pronounced that attempted reconciliation of the competing interests is difficult to defend, either in principle or in practice.     

Reasons for South Korean attitudes towards the death penalty: exploring the nexus between strong public support and history of misapplication

As of this writing, South Korea (officially, the Republic of Korea) is an abolitionist-in-practice nation; capital punishment is legal, but no death sentences have been carried out since a moratorium was enacted in 1997. Public support for the death penalty has decreased over time; however, the factors that determine support for or opposition to the death penalty of the South Korean general public are largely unknown. Using survey data from a nationwide sample of 416 respondents, this study examined the potential predictors for public attitudes towards capital punishment support. A majority of survey respondents (83%) supported the death penalty, a higher percentage than recent surveys of the South Korean general public. The deterrence and retribution perspectives were positively related to death penalty support, while crime severity, neighbourhood safety, the brutalisation effect, and innocence were negatively related. This study provides the first multivariate analysis of factors associated with South Korean attitudes towards the death penalty.     

Politics and the Death Penalty: 1930–2010

Recent theorists have argued that the use of the death penalty has been shaped by political considerations throughout history. However, empirical research has primarily examined this relationship in the last third of the twentieth century. In order to expand the temporal scope used to examine capital punishment practices, this study examines whether four post-Furman perspectives are able to account for the use of death sentences at the state level from 1930 to 2010. This study also examines whether the movement from the pre- to the post-Furman time period moderated the relationship between political factors and use of death sentences. The findings indicate that the size of religious fundamentalist populations, jurisdictional welfare expenditures, and surpluses in the labor force are significant predictors of death sentences across both eras. These results suggest that the predictive power of recent political theories is not restrained to the jurisdictional use of death sentences in the last third of the twentieth century.     

Prison Conditions, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence

Previous research has attempted to identify a deterrent effectof capital punishment. We argue that the quality of life inprison is likely to have a greater impact on criminal behaviorthan the death penalty. Using state-level panel data coveringthe period 1950–90, we demonstrate that the death rateamong prisoners (the best available proxy for prison conditions)is negatively correlated with crime rates, consistent with deterrence.This finding is shown to be quite robust. In contrast, thereis little systematic evidence that the execution rate influencescrime rates in this time period.     

Human Life and Human Rights: death penalty Data and sentencing Procedure during the Song Dynasty

The adjudication and amnesty system in the Song Dynasty has been thoroughly researched by academia, but the annual death penalty numbers have not been credibly determined due to insufficient and disorganized historical records. The period’s policy that no innocent person would be executed was based on the double-digit record of capital punishments for Zhenguan during the Tang Dynasty, and the execution number was adjusted accordingly. As a special procedure, Zoucai (a request for judgment) was used to reduce the death penalty numbers. The value of human life, concern about excessive execution, and trimming of the capital punishment regime resulted in conversations between the emperors and their officials about the death penalty, which allowed the law that executed capital punishments during the Song Dynasty to strike a proper balance between justice, efficiency, and mercy, while avoiding rigidity and abuse.     

The states and capital punishment: Executions from 1977–1984

The execution of Gary Gilmore in 1977 ended a ten-year de facto moratorium on executions in the states. Between 1977 and 1984 only 32 individuals were executed in 11 states, yet there were more than 1,000 inmates on death rows in 33 of the 38 states which provide for capital punishment. Because of the background characteristics of these 32 people and the crimes of which they were convicted, their executions have not served to renew anti-death penalty sentiment. Although the debate over the efficacy of its use continues, these executions have not validated any of the major arguments made by either pro or anti-death penalty forces.     

Death penalty politics and symbolic law in Russia

In contemporary Russia there is widespread support for the death penalty. Recent Russian presidents have endorsed the nation’s entry into the European Community (EC). The dilemma is that the price of membership into the EC is total abolition of capital punishment. The Russian Duma is much less popular than the president, even though it sides with public opinion in supporting capital punishment. Since 1997, these conflicting political positions have been temporarily neutralized by leaving capital punishment legislation in place but allowing the Russian president to offer clemency to all sentenced to death. In 1999, the Constitutional Court of Russia placed a moratorium on all death sentences until jury trials are re-introduced throughout the nation.     

Public attitudes towards the death penalty

Responses to a general question regarding the use of the death penalty were compared with the sentences that respondents chose in a set of scenarios describing homicide cases. The percentage of respondents who assigned the death sentence in one or more of the following scenarios was higher than those who favored the death penalty in the abstract question, but there were inconsistencies in the answers. A majority assigned the death penalty only for the most heinous offender described, and the figures were lower for other crimes, even clear cases of first degree murder. At the same time, a manipulation involving information about methods of execution did not affect answers. These results strongly suggest that the abstract questions typically used in public opinion polls do not accurately reflect the public's feelings about use of the death penalty in specific cases. More generally, research on public opinion regarding criminal justice policies should survey a variety of specific circumstances.     

经济犯罪之刑罚结构研究

刑罚在经济犯罪中的运用需要理想的刑罚结构。为此,可结合经济犯罪的特点分析各刑种在调整经济犯罪时的利弊得失,并以此为基础设计出一种以罚金刑和有期徒刑为主体,以无期徒刑和没收财产刑相结合为辅助,以拘役刑作为罚金刑替代措施处于次要地位的“三角形”式的刑罚结构模式。以此为指导,以破坏社会主义市场经济秩序罪为例,对我国现行经济犯罪的实然刑罚结构进行分析,可以发现我国现行经济犯罪的刑罚结构由于死刑、管制刑的存在,而使其具有不合理性,因此,要优化现行经济犯罪的刑罚结构,必须废除死刑,取消管制刑,并对其他刑种进行微调。     

POLICE KILLINGS AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: THE POST-FURMAN PERIOD

In view of (1) escalating national attention and political and judicial activity centering on capital punishment during recent years and (2) concomitant changes in police killing rates, this paper investigates the impact of the death penalty on rates of lethal assaults against the police for the post- Furman period, 1973–1984. In keeping with recent investigations of deterrence and general homicides, multiple regression is used as a means of controlling for the influence of possible confounding variables in examining the capital punishment/police killings relationship. Consistent with previous investigations, the present analysis provides no indication that our national return to capital punishment since Furman has had a systematic impact on police homicides. Law enforcement officers are not afforded an added measure of protection in death penalty compared to abolitionist states, nor is there anything but a chance association between the rate of police killings and the level of use of the death sentence for convicted murderers.     

The Death Penalty: An Unusual Punishment America is Inflicting Upon Itself

The United States is the only Western, industrialized nation still executing criminal offenders. The Constitutional provision that is most often used to call the appropriateness of capital punishment in the United States into question is the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Opponents of capital punishment have often argued various reasons why the death penalty is a cruel punishment, but the Supreme Court of the United States has not agreed. A new approach to abolition advocacy is needed. Since the death penalty has not been determined cruel, I submit a new legal argument based on the unusual nature of capital punishment. Utilizing systems theory, I posit the death penalty is an unusual criminal punishment due to the extraordinary range of persons beyond merely the defendant who are negatively impacted by executions.     

Media Coverage of Capital Murder: Exceptions Sustain the Rule

Scholars have demonstrated that prominent media coverage of crime shapes the creation of public policies. More subtly, such coverage can also sustain existing policies. In this paper, we ask: which capital crimes captivate the media and thus sustain popular support for the death penalty? To answer the question, we examine newspaper coverage of capital murders that occurred in Harris County (Houston), Texas between 1992 and 1999. Our findings reveal that prominent media coverage presents a distorted reality in which brutal crimes tend to be committed by minority offenders against vulnerable, “worthy” victims. Thus, the public mandate for capital punishment is sustained by atypical crimes that conform to existing cultural templates about criminal threat and victimization.     

American Capital Punishment in Comparative Perspective

It is often said that American capital punishment fulfills no purposes, serves no functions, and possesses no coherent rationale. In Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition (2010), David Garland argues that American capital punishment is functional, meaningful, and effective, especially in the cultural realm of death penalty discourse. He also demonstrates that America's radically local version of democracy helps explain why the death penalty has persisted in the United States long after it disappeared in other Western democracies and that many of the peculiar forms through which American capital punishment is now administered have been designed to deny association with the lynchings that have occurred in American history. Garland arrives at these conclusions by comparing capital punishment in contemporary America with death penalty systems from the American past and from other Western nations. This essay argues that comparison with Asia further illuminates what is peculiar—and ordinary—in American capital punishment.     

The age of death: Appraising public opinion of juvenile capital punishment

Despite its original purpose to protect and rehabilitate wayward children, the juvenile system has grown more punitive and has embraced the use of harsher punishments, including execution, for juvenile offenders. Relatively little is known, however, about public attitudes toward the use of capital punishment for juveniles. This research explored the determinants of death penalty opinion, identified the minimum age at which respondents were willing to allow a juvenile to be put to death and examined the willingness of respondents to support an alternative sentence of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). The results suggested that, while one-quarter of the sample was willing to execute juveniles who were fifteen and under at the time of the crime, there was less support for the execution of juveniles than of adults. In addition, of those who supported the use of the death penalty for juveniles, almost one-half would support LWOP as an alternative to the death penalty.     

Comparative proportionality review: A nationwide examination of reversed death sentences

A required part of the appellate review of death sentences in many capital punishment jurisdictions is comparative proportionality review. This procedure requires the court to compare the death sentence under review with sentences in similar cases to determine whether it is excessive. This article examines those death sentences from across the country that have been reversed on comparative proportionality grounds. Relatively few death sentences have been reversed on these grounds, and the number of reversals is decreasing. The reviews that reverse sentences infrequently compare only to other death sentences, commonly use a method that requires more than a mere common aggravating factor for selecting comparison cases, and rarely use the frequency method of comparative proportionality review.     

Death Qualification in Black and White: Racialized Decision Making and Death‐Qualified Juries

Death qualification has been shown to have a number of biasing effects that appear to undermine a capital defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair jury. Attitudes toward the death penalty have shifted modestly but consistently over the last several decades in ways that may have changed the overall impact of death qualification. Specifically, the very large gap between black and white Americans' current support for capital punishment raises the question of whether death qualification procedures disproportionately exclude African Americans from capital jury participation. In order to examine this possibility, we conducted two countywide death penalty attitude surveys in the California county that has the highest percentage of African American residents in the state. Results show that death qualification continues to have a number of serious biasing effects—including disproportionately excluding death penalty opponents—which result in the significant underrepresentation of African Americans. This creates a death‐qualified jury pool with the potential to be significantly more likely to ignore and even misuse mitigating factors and to rely more heavily on aggravating factors in their death penalty decision making. The implications of these findings for the fair administration of capital punishment are discussed.     

Capital punishment in Poland: The debate continues

Throughout its modern history, Poland has not escaped controversies surrounding the use of the death penalty. Tracing the historical development of laws dealing with the issue demonstrates an evolution influenced by various legal, political, social, philosophical, and international factors, leading up to the current absence of the penalty from the Polish legal system. The debate in society revolves around some stereotypical views held by different social groups. One of the biggest challenges is how to reconcile those views with empirical evidence, especially on issues like the deterrent effect of capital punishment. The authors describe the death penalty debate in Poland from these perspectives and take a retentionist position with regard to some selected crimes. As long as there are individuals willing to take other people's lives in a premeditated and deliberate manner demonstrating callous contempt for another person's existence, death remains the only punishment satisfying a sense of social justice and upholding the value of human life.     

Bureaucracy, “domesticated” elites, and the abolition of capital punishment. Processes of state-formation and the number of executions in England and Habsburg Austria between 1700 and 1914

The paper argues that the introduction of bureaucracy civilized death penalty and brutal punishment. The study bases on a quantitative analysis of the numbers of death sentences and executions in England and Habsburg Austria from 1700 to 1914 and on a qualitative analysis of historical literature about the death penalty in both countries. The paper shows that professional law enforcement specialists, bureaucrats, civil servants, and detached juridical stuff formed a new class of “domesticated middlemen elites”. In strong states, this new class becomes the dominating group. In weak states, however, old elites that combine economic and political power preserve their privileged positions. For them capital punishment is the most proper mean to deter criminals because old elites fear the alternative: the introduction of strong-state institutions. Beside obvious power struggles between central and local elites—which effects penal policy pro and con capital punishment—there is a civilizing process going beneath the surface of rationality and political interests. In strong states, the formation of a “habitus” averse to brutal punishment is initiated amongst “domesticated middlemen elites” who are acting in peaceful living- and working conditions.     

the death penalty: An American history

Stuart Banner's thoughtful book, The Death Penalty: An American History (2002), serves as the basis of this review essay which explores the forces shaping the nation's experiences with capital punishment. The essay traces Banner's account of important death penalty developments throughout American history and examines justifications traditionally offered in support of capital punishment, issues of administration, and execution protocols. It concludes by projecting that, consistent with historical trends and nagged by serious and recurring administrative problems, the death penalty in America will in due course become a thing of the past.