Against the Death Penalty: Christian and secular arguments against capital punishment by 
Angel of Death Row: my life as a death penalty defense lawyer by 
Capital Punishment by 
Dead Man Walking: an eyewitness account of the death penalty in the United States by 
Death Penalty by
A compendium of opinion surrounding the death penalty, including its ethics, public service, application, and reformation possibilities.
The Death Penalty by
Opposing Viewpoints series
Don't Kill in Our Names: families of murder victims speak out against the death penalty by 
Encyclopedia of Capital Punishment in the United States by 
The Ethics of Capital Punishment by 
Hanged: a history of Idaho's executions by 
The Innocent Man: murder and injustice in a small town by 
Is the Death Penalty Fair? by 
Ultimate Punishment: a lawyer's reflections on dealing with the death penalty by
In this vivid account of how his views on the death penalty have evolved, Turow describes his own experiences with capital punishment from his days as an impassioned young prosecutor to his recent service on the Illinois commission which investigated the administration of the death penalty and influenced Governor George Ryan's unprecedented commutation of the sentences of 164 death row inmates on his last day in office.
Who Deserves to Die: constructing the executable subject by 
A Wild Justice: the death and resurrection of capital punishment in America by
Drawing on never-before-published original source detail, the epic story of two of the most consequential, and largely forgotten, moments in Supreme Court history. For two hundred years, the constitutionality of capital punishment had been axiomatic. But in 1962, Justice Arthur Goldberg and his clerk Alan Dershowitz dared to suggest otherwise, launching an underfunded band of civil rights attorneys on a quixotic crusade. In 1972, in a most unlikely victory, the Supreme Court struck down Georgia's death penalty law in Furman v. Georgia. Though the decision had sharply divided the justices, nearly everyone, including the justices themselves, believed Furman would mean the end of executions in America. Instead, states responded with a swift and decisive showing of support for capital punishment. As anxiety about crime rose and public approval of the Supreme Court declined, the stage was set in 1976 for Gregg v. Georgia, in which the Court dramatically reversed direction. A Wild Justice is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the Court, the justices, and the political complexities of one of the most racially charged and morally vexing issues of our time.
The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law by 
Against the Death Penalty by
A landmark dissenting opinion arguing against the death penaltyDoes the death penalty violate the Constitution? In Against the Death Penalty, Justice Stephen G. Breyer argues that it does: that it is carried out unfairly and inconsistently, and thus violates the ban on'cruel and unusual punishments'specified by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.'Today's administration of the death penalty,'Breyer writes,'involves three fundamental constitutional defects: (1) serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty's penological purpose. Perhaps as a result, (4) most places within the United States have abandoned its use.'This volume contains Breyer's dissent in the case of Glossip v. Gross, which involved an unsuccessful challenge to Oklahoma's use of a lethal-injection drug because it might cause severe pain. Justice Breyer's legal citations have been edited to make them understandable to a general audience, but the text retains the full force of his powerful argument that the time has come for the Supreme Court to revisit the constitutionality of the death penalty.Breyer was joined in his dissent from the bench by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their passionate argument has been cited by many legal experts including fellow Justice Antonin Scalia as signaling an eventual Court ruling striking down the death penalty. A similar dissent in 1963 by Breyer's mentor, Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, helped set the stage for a later ruling, imposing what turned out to be a four-year moratorium on executions.
Among the Lowest of the Dead: The Culture of Capital Punishment by 
Capital Punishment in the U. S. States by
Archibald attempts to find variables that can explain the variation not only in the adoption of the death penalty, but also in the implementation of capital punishment. She combines Kingdons Garbage Can model and Social Control Theory to explain the differences in the adoption and implementation of the death penalty. Given that there was only one model that showed a correlation between the adoption and implementation of the death penalty and homicide rates, while other variables, such as race and hate crimes, were correlated across multiple models, one could argue that the death penalty is used as a means of social control. Her results also bolster the argument that state policies are not merely reactions to murder rates, but are influenced by other sociological, political, and economic factors.
Capital Punishment, Second Edition by
Capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty, has a long history. Today, however, the United Statesrsquo; continued use of the death penalty sets it apart from other Western democracies. Questions remain about whether the death penalty act
Courting Death : the Supreme Court and capital punishment by
Refusing to eradicate the death penalty, the U.S. has attempted to reform and rationalize capital punishment through federal constitutional law. While execution chambers remain active in several states, Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker argue that the fate of the American death penalty is likely to be sealed by this failed judicial experiment.
Death penalty by
Contains concise, straightforward summaries, analyzing and explaining groundbreaking court cases on the issue of the death penalty.
The Death Penalty: What's Keeping It Alive by
The United States is divided about the death penalty—17 states have banned it, while the remaining states have not. From wrongful convictions to botched executions, capital punishment is fraught with controversy. In The Death Penalty: What’s Keeping It Alive, award-winning criminal defense attorney Andrea Lyon turns a critical eye towards the reasons why the death penalty remains active in most states, in spite of well-documented flaws in the justice system. The book opens with an overview of the history of the death penalty in America, then digs into the reasons capital punishment is a fixture in the justice system of most states. The author argues that religious and moral convictions play a role, as does media coverage of crime and punishment. Politics, however, plays the biggest role, according to the author, with no one wanting to look soft on crime. The death penalty remains a deadly political tool in most of the United States.
Exile and Embrace: Contemporary Religious Discourse on the Death Penalty by
With passion and precision, Exile and Embrace examines the key elements of the religious debates over capital punishment and shows how they reflect the values and self-understandings of contemporary Americans. Santoro demonstrates that capital punishment has relatively little to do with the perpetrators and much more to do with those who would impose the punishment. Because of this, he convincingly argues, we should focus our attention not on the perpetrators and victims, as is typically the case in debates pro and con about the death penalty, but on ourselves and on the mechanisms that we use to impose or oppose the death penalty. An important book that will appeal to those involved in the death penalty debate and to general religious studies and American studies scholars, as well.
An Expendable Man: The Near-Execution of Earl Washington, Jr. by 
Fighting the Death Penalty : A Fifty-Year Journey of Argument and Persuasion by
Michigan is the only state in the country that has a death penalty prohibition in its constitution—Eugene G. Wanger's compelling arguments against capital punishment is a large reason it is there. The forty pieces in this volume are writings created or used by the author, who penned the prohibition clause, during his fifty years as a death penalty abolitionist. His extraordinary background in forensics, law, and political activity as constitutional convention delegate and co-chairman of the Michigan Committee Against Capital Punishment has produced a remarkable collection. It is not only a fifty-year history of the anti–death penalty argument in America, it also is a detailed and challenging example of how the argument against capital punishment may be successfully made.
Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty by
Gruesome Spectacles tells the sobering history of botched, mismanaged, and painful executions in the U.S. from 1890 to the present. Since the book's initial publication in 2014, the cruel and unusual executions of a number of people on death row, including Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma and Joseph Wood in Arizona, have made headlines and renewed vigorous debate surrounding the death penalty in America. Austin Sarat's book instantly became an essential resource for citizens, scholars, and lawmakers interested in capital punishment--even the Supreme Court, which cited the book in its recent opinion, Glossip v. Gross. Now in paperback, the book includes a new preface outlining the latest twists and turns in the death penalty debate, including the recent galvanization of citizens and leaders alike as recent botched executions have unfolded in the press. Sarat argues that unlike in the past, today's botched executions seem less like inexplicable mishaps and more like the latest symptoms of a death penalty machinery in disarray. Gruesome Spectacles traces the historical evolution of methods of execution, from hanging or firing squad to electrocution to gas and lethal injection. Even though each of these technologies was developed to "perfect" state killing by decreasing the chance of a cruel death, an estimated three percent of all American executions went awry in one way or another. Sarat recounts the gripping and truly gruesome stories of some of these deaths--stories obscured by history and to some extent, the popular press.
Legacy of Violence: Lynch Mobs and Executions in Minnesota by 
Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South by 
Lethal State : A History of the Death Penalty in North Carolina by
For years, American states have tinkered with the machinery of death, seeking to align capital punishment with evolving social standards and public will. Against this backdrop, North Carolina had long stood out as a prolific executioner with harsh mandatory sentencing statutes. But as the state sought to remake its image as modern and business-progressive in the early twentieth century, the question of execution preoccupied lawmakers, reformers, and state boosters alike.In this book, Seth Kotch recounts the history of the death penalty in North Carolina from its colonial origins to the present. He tracks the attempts to reform and sanitize the administration of death in a state as dedicated to its image as it was to rigid racial hierarchies. Through this lens, Lethal State helps explain not only Americans'deep and growing uncertainty about the death penalty but also their commitment to it. Kotch argues that Jim Crow justice continued to reign in the guise of a modernizing, orderly state and offers essential insight into the relationship between race, violence, and power in North Carolina. The history of capital punishment in North Carolina, as in other states wrestling with similar issues, emerges as one of state-building through lethal punishment.
Living on Death Row by
Living on Death Row represents a 13-year ethnographic study of men awaiting their execution while confined on Ohio's Death Row (DR). Lose was granted unprecedented access to conduct confidential interviews in a supermax environment. Slowly he developed a mutual trust with the inmates, and they began to open up about their crimes, lives, hopes, fears and impending executions. Reading Death Row statistics can be a blasé experience to some, upsetting to others. But nothing compares to confronting the rampant injustices, horrendous misconceptions and lies about the culture of Death Row. A few are innocent, most are guilty, but all were found guilty of capital murder not because of their crimes but due to poverty, mental illness, or minority status. Equally upsetting were the frank, open discussions of their homicides.
Murder Stories: Ideological Narratives in Capital Punishment by
Murder Stories engages with the current theoretical debate in death penalty research on the role of cultural commitments to ‘American'ideologies in the retention of capital punishment. The central aim of the study is to illuminate the elusive yet powerful role of ideology in legal discourses. Through analyzing the content and processes of death penalty narratives, this research illuminates the covert life of ‘the American Creed,'(a nexus of ideologies—liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez faire—said to be unique to the United States) in the law. Murder Stories draws on the entire record of California death sentence resulting trials from three large and diverse California counties for the years 1996 – 2004, as well as interviews with 26 capital caseworkers (attorneys, judges, and investigators) from the same counties. Employing the theoretical framework proposed by Ewick and Silbey (1995) to study hegemonic and subversive narratives, and also the ethnographic approach advocated by Amsterdam and Hertz (1992) to study the producers and processes of constructing legal narratives, this book traces the ideological content carried within the stories told by everyday practitioners of capital punishment by investigating the content, process, and ideological implications of these narratives.The central theoretical finding is that the narratives constructed by both prosecutors and defenders tend to instantiate rather than subvert the ideological tenets of the American Creed.
The Penalty Is Death: U.S. Newspaper Coverage of Women's Executions by 
Racial Disparities in Capital Sentencing: Prejudice and Discrimination in the Jury Room by
Flexon presents an interdisciplinary perspective to the problem of racial disparities in capital case outcomes. In doing so, research from social and cognitive psychology concerning stereotypes and attitude influence were bridged with other empirical findings concerning racial disparities in capital sentencing. Specifically, the psychology of stereotypes and attitudes are used to help explain how racial discrimination can operate undetected among death qualified jurors while producing sentencing discrepancies. The introduction of a potential source of bias information concerning criminal justice and race also is offered. Results indicate that prejudicial ideas are likely operating to influence capital sentencing decisions.
Racial Prejudice, Juror Empathy, and Sentencing in Death Penalty Cases by 
