1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910815205803321

Titolo

The road to abolition? : the future of capital punishment in the United States / / edited by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : New York University Press, 2009

ISBN

0-8147-6254-9

1-4416-3384-7

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (385 p.)

Collana

The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute series on race and justice

Altri autori (Persone)

OgletreeCharles J

SaratAustin

Disciplina

364.660973

Soggetti

Capital punishment - United States

Punishment - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Executioner’s Waning Defenses -- 2. Blinded by Science on the Road to Abolition? -- 3. Abolition in the United States by 2050 On Political Capital and Ordinary Acts of Resistance -- 4. The Beginning of the End? -- 5. Rocked but Still Rolling -- 6. For Execution Methods Challenges, the Road to Abolition Is Paved with Paradox -- 7. Perfect Execution -- 8. “No Improvement over Electrocution or Even a Bullet” -- 9. Torture, War, and Capital Punishment -- 10. Making Difference -- About the Contributors -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

At the start of the twenty-first century, America is in the midst of a profound national reconsideration of the death penalty. There has been a dramatic decline in the number of people being sentenced to death as well as executed, exonerations have become common, and the number of states abolishing the death penalty is on the rise. The essays featured in The Road to Abolition? track this shift in attitudes toward capital punishment, and consider whether or not the death penalty will ever be abolished in America.The interdisciplinary group of experts gathered by Charles J. Ogletree Jr., and Austin Sarat ask and attempt to answer the hard questions that need to be addressed if the death penalty is to be abolished. Will the death penalty end only to be



replaced with life in prison without parole? Will life without the possibility of parole become, in essence, the new death penalty? For abolitionists, might that be a pyrrhic victory? The contributors discuss how the death penalty might be abolished, with particular emphasis on the current debate over lethal injection as a case study on why and how the elimination of certain forms of execution might provide a model for the larger abolition of the death penalty.