美国死刑制度评介

美国死刑制度评介尹春丽在当今世界上，美国的死刑制度独树一帜，它不仅是少有的几个保留死刑的发达国家之一，①而且也是死刑制度最有特色的国家之一，其死刑制度的不统一性、对死刑态度的矛盾性和死刑执行方法的多样性，更是其他国家所没有的。近年来，美国不顾西方一...     

美国死刑制度概览

美国自1976年恢复死刑以来，直至2005年年底，全国实际执行死刑的人数才达到1000人，死刑人数从0到1000，美国整整用了29年的时间，其死刑人数之所以比较少，主要得益于其在死刑适用对象、适用程序、救济程序、执行制度等方面比较完善的慎用、少用、限制死刑的法律制度以及比较丰富的理论和实践经验。美国的死刑制度，对于精密构建我国的死刑制度无疑将具有十分重要的理论和现实意义。     

中美死刑制度比较研究

中美两国是世界上有影响的国家,这两个国家仍然保留死刑的适用。目前,中国还不能彻底废除死刑,但应该严格控制死刑适用。从法律传统看,中美两国分属于大陆法系与英美法系,对这两个国家的死刑制度进行比较研究,无论是对中国死刑制度的改革还是对美国死刑制度的修正都是有其积极意义的。     

美国死刑制度动态评述

<正> 死刑制度从英国殖民统治时期就已成为北美司法制度的一个重要组成部分,在其发展过程中,很少有人对美国开国元勋赞同的死刑制度提出根本的质疑.联邦首席法官沃伦曾经指出:"在我们整个历史中一直延用死刑.因此,当死刑仍被广泛认可的时候.不能说它违背了宪法上的残酷概念."他的死刑观可以说代表了美国司法界. 20世纪前,报应刑和威慑刑思想几乎主宰了美国的刑事立法和司法,死刑被认为是一种既经济又实用的刑罚手段.直到19世纪30年代,马萨诸塞州立法院议员罗伯特·兰塔尔发起了一场否定死刑遏制力的刑事司法改革运动,才开始动摇死刑在美国的传统根基.     

浅析中国死刑制度

死刑,顾名思义就是将犯罪者处死的刑罚。由于死刑剥夺的是受刑人的生命,在国家的刑罚制度中,无疑是最严厉的。本丈从我国死刑的历史完善及现状、死刑废与留、中国死刑存在的问题、中国死刑制度发展的必然方向、死刑限制与废除的建议,阐述对死刑制度的理解。     

论我国死刑制度

死刑制度在我国有着漫长的历史发展过程,在这个过程中死刑制度有着其自身的演变规律,它的演变规律也是客观存在的.然而死刑直到今天仍然适用于我国而不被废止,那么它就必然有它存在的合理性,但也有一些部分需要根据时代的变化和发展进行调整,这也正是本文要解决的问题.本文通过对我国死刑制度产生的渊源和新中国成立后的死刑制度进行全面的介绍,以期更清楚的了解我国死刑现如今的生存状况.透彻、细致的剖析我国程序法和实体法上死刑制度的问题以及立法和实践中如何完善死刑制度进行了一些有益的思考和建议.     

美国宪法修正案与其死刑制度改革

联邦体制之下的美国死刑立法与制度改革,并非简单的州际立法取舍与司法适用标准变革问题,而是历时经久、事关宪法效力的根本问题。美国死刑改革作为世界死刑多元化改革模式中一个独立而有益的范本,其发展经历了以立法改革为中心向以司法控制为中心的转变。宪法确立的"二元联邦"制、最高法院的违宪审查权,是宪法修正案影响美国死刑变革的制度基础。20世纪70年代以来,联邦最高法院通过对宪法第八修正案"禁止残酷与不寻常刑罚"条款进行"进化中的伦理标准"解释,不断调整死刑适用程序与实体标准,构建出以程序上的"双阶程序"、实体上削减与引入法定加重情节限制为核心的死刑裁量制度,开创了死刑立法与司法改革的双向互动局面。     

美国死刑量刑制度的统一性与个别化的协调

在所有的刑事司法制度下,量刑的统一性和个别化的冲突均无法避免,死刑量刑也不例外。本文通过对美国死刑量刑制度的分析,揭示出美国如何在死刑案件审理中通过对定罪量刑过程进行不同的界定,以实现对死刑使用的限制。反思我国现行的死刑制度,定罪和量刑阶段合二为一,严重影响了对死刑的公正适用。作者建议借鉴美国死刑量刑独特的制度设置,将死刑定罪和量刑阶段进行区分,并对如何适用死刑作严格的量刑论证。     

浅析我国死刑制度

死刑制度是刑法中极为重要的一部分,死刑本身具有独特性,在刑法学研究领域是相当活跃的一个部分。死刑制度的取向以及死刑存废问题一直都是理论上和立法上的热点。我国现行死刑制度有其历史渊源和现实依据,有其存在的合理性,但也有需要根据时代的变化和发展进行调整的部分。本文正是要通过对我国现行死刑制度的介绍和分析,以求对我国的死刑制度形成一个相对全面的认识,进而对现行死刑制度进行一些有益的思考。     

美国行政赦免制度及其对死刑执行的限制

赦免是各国以外在于司法制度的方法干预司法的一项制度.美国行政赦免制度是美国行政干预司法的制度.美国联邦和部分州保留了死刑,其行政赦免在限制死刑执行中曾经起到了极其重要的作用.虽然自上世纪70年代以来,美国行政赦免在限制死刑执行中的运用已变得较为少见,但其仍是一个有效的限制死刑执行的制度.     

Capital punishment views in China and the United States: a preliminary study among college students

There is a lack of research on attitudes toward capital punishment in China, and there is even less research on cross-national comparisons of capital punishment views. Using data recently collected from college students in the United States and China, this study finds that U.S. and Chinese students have differences in their views on the death penalty and its functions of deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. This study also reveals that the respondents' perspectives of deterrence, rehabilitation, retribution, and incapacitation all affect their attitudes toward the death penalty in the United States, whereas only the first three views affect attitudes toward capital punishment in China. Furthermore, retribution is the strongest predictor in the United States, whereas deterrence is the strongest predictor in China.     

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.     

The triumph of vengeance over retribution: the United States Supreme Court and the death penalty

In this article the author uses a review of Welsh S. White'sThe Death Penalty in the Nineties as a framework for analyzing recent trends in the United States Supreme Court's death penalty jurisprudence. Since 1976 the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment at least in part on the notion that the death penalty serves the useful social purpose of retribution. This article, however, contends that it is imperative to distinguish between retribution and vengeance as rationales for criminal punishment. Modern retributive theory calls for punishments to be guided by considerations of proportionality, fairness, and equality. Vengeance-based punishments, on the other hand, are aimed at satisfying the victim's and society's desire for retaliation and are not limited by the retributive principle that punishment must be proportionate to the severity of the crime and the moral blameworthiness of the offender. The article analyzes recent Supreme Court decisions that are not examined inThe Death Penalty in the Nineties-decisions that allow the introduction of victim-impact evidence into capital sentencing proceedings and permit the death penalty to be imposed on 16-year-old offenders, mentally retarded defendants, and those who neither kill nor intend to kill. These decisions, it is argued, demonstrate that the contemporary Court has bestowed judicial approval on vengeance as an acceptable justification for capital punishment.     

Party affiliation and support for capital punishment: An assessment of lawmakers from Canada and the United States

This article assesses the attitudes supporting capital punishment among lawmakers from two democratic countries — Canada and the United States. Accordingly, data were collected from three different populations responsible for legislating law either permitting or prohibiting the use of capital punishment in their respective jurisdictions — the Canadian House of Commons and the Michigan and Ohio state legislatures. These data were used to assess two general hypotheses: (1) Conservative parties will report higher levels of support for capital punishment; and, (2) Individual members from liberal political parties will report lower levels of support for capital punishment when compared to members of more conservative parties. The research findings supported both hypotheses.     

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 death penalty loses its mind: an interview with Professor James Acker

In April 2009 the American Law Institute (ALI) made the decision to withdraw its support for the a section of the Model Penal Code that had been instrumental in shaping contemporary death penalty legislation. The Institute had created the modern legal and criminal justice administration framework for capital punishment as part of its Model Penal Code in 1962. Professor James Acker, one of the leading scholars on the death penalty in the United States, speaks to the import of this decision while providing some historical context for ALI’s involvement in the matter initially.     

The nexus between attribution theory and racial attitudes: a test of racial attribution and public opinion of capital punishment

Research has shown that attribution theory and racial attitudes are among the most consistent attitudinal predictors of capital punishment opinion. This study explores the overlap of these two constructs, racial attribution, and its ability to account for support and opposition to the death penalty. Using data from the 1972–2016 cumulative data file of the General Social Survey, three logistic regression models were used to analyze the effect of internal and external racial attribution on capital punishment opinions for (a) the aggregate sample, (b) White respondents only, and (c) Black respondents only. Respondents were asked whether racial inequalities were due to structural disadvantages or personal deficiencies of Black Americans. Findings showed that respondents in all three models were more likely to support the death penalty when they attributed racial inequalities to personal deficiencies of Blacks and less likely to support the death penalty when they endorsed structural disadvantages, although the effects were somewhat muted for Black respondents. These findings suggest that ongoing public support for capital punishment in the United States is based at least in part on a fundamental attribution error in which Whites and some Blacks alike blame Blacks for their own deprivation.     

Abolishing the Death Penalty: An Untested Legal Argument

This paper supplies the logical and substantive framework for an untested challenge to the legality of the death penalty in the United States. As such, it yields a novel strategy for appellants and supporting amici seeking review of capital cases in the United States Supreme Court. With twin reliance on the right of the people to reparation for harm wrongly inflicted by others and their constitutional right to Due Process of Law under the Fourteenth Amendment, this paper advances the argument that the mere possibility of a wrongful execution yields an imperative for abolishment of capital punishment by the Court.     

Death as a Penalty and the Fantasy of Instant Death

In this essay I take up the question of how death can be a penalty, given that each of us will eventually die. I argue that capital punishment in the United States rests on contradictory demands for painless death delivered humanely through pharmaceuticals and yet denies the accused the possibility of natural death. The death penalty must be at once humane and punishing. Analyzing what we mean by ‘botched’ executions, along with the language of the Supreme Court in upholding lethal injection as a humane application of the death penalty, I argue that the fantasy of instant death is at the heart of the tension between death as painless and death as penalty. In the end, I turn to Derrida’s Death Penalty Seminar Volume One, particularly his discussion of Kant’s defence of the capital punishment, and the pivotal role of time in his discussion. Finally, I suggest that the fantasies of instantaneous death and our technological mastery of it result in the fantasy of the ‘good’ punishing death.     

Racial capitalism and punishment philosophy and practices: what really stands in the way of prison abolition

This paper explores punishment philosophy and practices in the United States from a critical criminological perspective, utilizing a racial capitalism framework to illustrate forces that impede prison abolition. The paper examines historic and contemporary punishments implemented against ‘others’ to show how such practices help to sustain white capital accumulation and white privilege. The paper also discusses a number of the individual social-psychological theories that assist in the maintenance of that system. Finally, the paper calls for the eradication of racial capitalism through a stronger revolutionary consciousness.