The Death Penalty In The Nineties

An up-to-date examination of legal changes and shifting attitudes surrounding capital punishment

This volume looks at the changes in British politics and government since the accession of Mrs Thatcher in 1979, and in particular at the 1990s. Its aim is to explore some of these changes and to emphasize the recurring paradoxes in political developments.

China's infamous death penalty record is the product of firm Party-state control and policy-setting. Though during the 1980s and 1990s, the Party's emphasis was on "kill many," in the 2000s the direction of policy began to move toward "kill fewer." This book details the policies, institutions, and story behind the reform of the death penalty.

Today, death sentences in the U.S. are as rare as lightning strikes. Brandon Garrett shows us the reasons why, and explains what the failed death penalty experiment teaches about the effect of inept lawyering, overzealous prosecution, race discrimination, wrongful convictions, and excessive punishments throughout the criminal justice system.

More than 30 years after the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, it is still plagued with egregious problems. Issues of wrongful conviction, inhumane practices, and its efficacy as a deterrent are hotly debated topics. As of August 2007, two-thirds of the worlds countries have abolished the death penalty. Today, the US falls alongside I

The death penalty is not simply the most serious criminal punishment. It has been a singular social, legal, and moral problem in the Western world over the past two hundred years. Capital punishment is disappearing from every nation in the West except the United States. No political science of capital punishment in the United States has been attempted until this book. Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins offer a redefinition of the central political and legal issues and a re-examination of the whole subject in the light of the social, political, and moral conditions of the United States in the 1980s. Lawyers, criminologists, political scientists, and motivated general readers will find the profile of a United States pursuing an active execution policy in the 1980s and 1990s to be an original and compelling contribution to the discussion of the future of the death penalty. Zimring and Hawkins's prediction for future policy, while based on historical precedent, is in sharp contrast to conventional wisdom about the United States Supreme Court. This book was first published in 1986.

One of the broadest and most balanced accounts of the capital punishment debate, The Leviathan's Choice explores the death penalty from four distinct perspectives--philosophical, theological, social science, and legal--and includes scholarly essays on both sides of the debate. An ideal reader for students and policy makers, this book is essential for everyone following the arguments surrounding the death penalty.

A comprehensive history of the death penalty in the West that provides more material on capital punishment in Western Christian history than is available in any other work in English.