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In 1958, a search of the Barberousse Prison in Algiers led to the confiscation of the journal, notes, and correspondence of Baya Hocine, a 17-year-old female detainee who had been sentenced to death for an attack. Written in the intimate style of a personal diary, Hocine's papers are a valuable source for the historiography of prisons during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962). The purpose of this article is to reconstruct the trajectory from prison to the French Archives, where they appear in typed form, as well as to shed light on the circumstances under which they were written. While they may be insufficient to reconstitute the actual conditions of life in the prison because they communicate private thoughts, they highlight the radical specificity of Barberousse in these wartime years as a place where people who had been sentenced to death were detained and executed and where death was omnipresent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mentally ill and emotionally disturbed offenders comprise a significant component of those whose criminal conduct has swept them into the criminal justice system, including a subset who are tried and convicted of capital murder. The present study employs the population of capital cases advanced to penalty phase in the state of North Carolina (1990-2009) to examine whether presentation to the jury of the statutory mitigators of extreme mental and emotional disturbance and capacity impaired, and specific mental illness diagnoses, often referred to as mental disorders, at the sentencing phase mitigate against a sentence of death. Mental disorders included mood disorders, psychotic disorders, anxiety disorders, brain disorders, multiple mental illness diagnoses, learning disabilities, and personality disorders. Results from these 835 cases indicate that with the exception of one, the diagnosis of a learning disability, the capital jury's acceptance of various mental health conditions does not effectively mitigate against a capital sentence. In addition, jury rejection of a diagnosis of mental illness or the two mental health statutory mitigators, capacity impaired and extreme emotional disturbance, as a mitigating factor has a counter-mitigating effect in that it significantly increases the odds of a death penalty recommendation by about 85-200%., (© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

News reporting is the carrier of ideology and culture. Although the media claims to be impartial, objective and neutral, they necessarily reflect a certain stance. The media usually constructs characters directly or indirectly in news reports so as to change the audience’s perception of the events. Taking the news headlines related to Rongzhi Lao from thepaper as the data, this paper analyzed the role models of Rongzhi Lao shaped by the media from the perspective of transitivity by using the UAM corpus tool and Python. The result shows that (1) in the news headlines related to Rongzhi Lao from thepaper as the data, the material process accounts for the largest proportion, followed by the relational process, mental process, verbal process, and existential process; (2) through the five processes, Rongzhi Lao is constructed as a guilty person who is good at evading his responsibilities and disguising but does not regret committing felonies on his initiative. This paper gives us insight to clarify the purpose of media news reporting by understanding how the media constructs characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After that painful and humiliating experience, Edwards understandably lay low for a while but the appearance of the masked lady with the manuscript of the I Memorial i proved irresistible so that once again Edwards was involved in clandestine and dangerous activity. On a hot summer's afternoon in London in 1705, a mysterious masked lady delivers a manuscript, I The Memorial of the Church of England i , to David Edwards, a well-established printer, demanding that he publish it as soon as possible. [Extracted from the article]

The paper aimed at assessing some critiques of feminist-ethical conception and evaluation of the operational practice of capital punishment. It recognized that ethics has been for the operational values of the human persons as subjects of lived experiences based on the choices we make. This has been for the promotion, protection and respect for the fundamental human rights, especially the right to life, which gives a firmed foundation for other rights for the sustainability of the society in harmony, peace, equity and justice. The paper recognized that these qualities of living in any given society cannot be guaranteed by the practice of capital punishment as corrective measure, for the control of crimes. It is on this concern for the effects of social or societal practices of capital punishment, the feminist ethics examined this practice on women and the children, as most of the criminals convicted to face capital punishment are mainly the men folk who are supposed to live to care for their families. As such, the feminist ethicists advocate for possible eradication of capital punishment in every society as practiced by the governments of the nations. Adopting phenomenological method of analysis, the paper concluded that the feminist ethicists recognized that the society can be more peaceful and orderly when the lives and values of women in reference to the valuation of all lives, and learn the justice and the values of the society are dependable on the values such society has on the women as subjects of lived experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-reads American Appellate and Supreme Court rulings about the constitutionality of execution by electrocution from the perspective of new materialism. Using the case of Provenzano v. Moore, this paper highlights how the existing jurisprudence develops a notion of cruelty that deliberately avoids the sensual and affective dimensions of punishment. Given the profoundly corporeal nature of punishment and even more so capital punishment, any consideration of the ethics of punitive practice must meaningfully engage with the body, its situatedness, and its material networks, all of which enact punishment as a social phenomenon. Employing Jane Bennett's ethics of affective enchantment, grounded in the ethico-onto-epistemology of new materialist thinkers, this paper critiques the majority opinion in Provenzano by demonstrating how it feeds into modern disenchantment. It then draws on Provenzano's landmark dissent to show how ethical practice stems from deliberately opening oneself up to the wonderment of an entangled world produced through the acknowledgement of nonhuman selves and plastic bodies. This has the potential to generate an understanding of 'humane' punishment that better, and more meaningfully accounts for how human beings relate to and engage with the world around them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dokuz Eylul University Journal of Graduate School of Social Sciences is the property of Dokuz Eylul University Graduate School of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we investigate the death penalty in the People's Republic of China in the Xi Jinping era (2012-). Unlike previous administrations, Xi does not appear to have articulated a signature death penalty policy. Where policy in China is unclear, assessing both the quality and frequency of discourse on the topic can provide evidence regarding an administration's priorities. Therefore, we analyse death penalty discourse during Xi's tenure and compare it with discourse under his predecessors. We base our analysis on three large datasets assembled for this project--the collected works of China's leaders, a complete corpus of The People's Daily and a database of academic publications in China. We find no references to the death penalty in Xi Jinping's speeches. We also find a decline in The People's Daily coverage of the death penalty beginning in 2015 and a sharp decrease in academic publications on capital punishment beginning in 2011. Our findings indicate that discourse on the death penalty has declined in the Xi era. We argue that the death penalty has been demobilised under Xi as a discursive site of political signalling. Finally, we conclude with some observations about discursive silence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces a question of how narrative studies can contribute to abolition of the death penalty in the United States. A second section maps a history of Death Row narratives from incarcerated people and witness memoirs, including early American narratives, Sacco and Vanzetti, Caryl Chessman, and contemporary writers such as Albert Woodfox. This historicization lays a foundation for treating Death Row literature as a coherent witness genre. A third theoretical section argues that the major work of narratives opposed to the death penalty lies in humanization of condemned prisoners and assertion of a human right to life, yet this is an insufficient and flawed argument. Death Row literature from incarcerated people represents an inherent claim on citizenship and protection of a right to life, not sentimentalism. The paper closes by arguing that to have credibility and effect, writing from observers outside prisons demands an encircling link between witness and activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the relationships that Derrida establishes between three analytic discussions and three autoimmunities. The analytic discussions are (1) the antinomy of hospitality, related to what happens when the subject faces demands from strangers; (2) the antinomy of the death penalty, related to the meeting between the right to life and the right to end the life of another; (3) the antinomy of animality related to laws and what lies beyond them. The autoimmunities are (1) the autoimmunity of inclusion: democracy is open only to its sovereign citizens while it claims to welcome all who are excluded; (2) the autoimmunity of rights and liberties: in liberal democracy, rights and liberties are meant to challenge sovereignty's absolutism, but any attack on sovereignty is an attack on rights and liberties; (3) the autoimmunity of globalization: for democracy to work it requires protection provided by a supersovereignty, which limits the sovereignty of states, and hence, democracy. The paper follows Derrida's connections between the questions of hospitality, the death penalty, and animality on the one hand, and the autoimmune aspects of democratic politics on the other, to argue that his deconstruction of democracy is an ethicization of democracy activated by the concept of sovereignty, and a deconstruction of sovereignty via ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article paper examines the possibility of consular protection in espionage and terrorist act cases from the perspective of international law and the International Court of Justice judgment in the Jadhav case (India v. Pakistan). In this descriptive- and analytical research, by re-examining the precedent of the court in cases related to the interpretation and application of article 36 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, we conclude that the Court, because of jurisdictional limitations, reaffirms its previous precedent (stare decisions) on not considering consular protection as a human right. But by remembering the responsibility of the host state to effective review and reconsideration of the convictions and sentences, the court implicitly confirms the importance of consular protection in making the right to a fair trial more effective. Moreover, by denying the existence of the "terrorism and espionage exclusion" in treaties and customary international law, the Court considered that all persons deprived of liberty regardless of their criminal charge and its gravity have the right to receive consular protection from their respective state. The approach of the International Court of Justice cas d’espece is evaluated in the sequence of progressive humanization of international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues: (1) retributive theories of punishment fail to account for salient dimensions of homicide; (2) retributive theories must be supplemented by restorative justice principles in order to account for the phenomenon of homicide; and (3) in order to robustly account for the phenomenon of homicide in this way, retributive theories must relinquish their claim to justifying capital punishment. It begins by examining the values animating retributive theories of punishment and demonstrating how they conceal salient dimensions of murder and criminal justice, such as the basically interpersonal nature of crime and the psychological harm that stems from it. In order to account for these aspects of homicide, which escape consideration under retributivist values alone, this paper looks beyond those theories to the insights and values animating restorative justice. It argues that retributivism should be supplemented by a relational view of crime in order to bring into view the constellation of psychological harms that are associated with homicide. In order to more comprehensively theorize homicide and a just response to it by adopting the insights and values of restorative justice, retributive theory must sacrifice any claim to justifying capital punishment. The infliction of the death penalty is so fundamentally toxic to the aims and values animating restorative justice that capital punishment must be given up for the sake of an honest, comprehensive theory. This paper conceives in broad outline how punishment for murder could be tailored in light of restorative values in order to create the conditions for contrition, remorse, and genuine apology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to describe the interpretive nature of burn care nursing using an example from the first author's practice. It asserts how burn injuries are uniquely situated from a hermeneutic perspective as an embodied change that alters the way a burn injured person lives in the world. This paper was written for an assignment in a hermeneutic methodology class, focused on the role of the burns nurse, and further expanded in relation to the hermeneutic significance of burn injuries. It demonstrates the fit of hermeneutics as a way of understanding nursing practice and burn injuries and serves as a support to the use of hermeneutics in the author's Master of Nursing thesis project exploring the experiences of burn survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a series of cases known as the Miller trilogy, the Supreme Court recognized that children are both less culpable and more amenable to rehabilitation than adults, and that those differences must be considered at sentencing. Relying on the principle that kids are different for constitutional purposes, the Court abolished capital punishment for minors and significantly limited the extent to which minors can be subject to life-without-parole (“LWOP”) terms. Equally important, the Miller trilogy was predicated on the concept of inherent human dignity, and it recognized the youthful prisoner’s need for “hope” and “reconciliation with society.” While scholars have grappled with the implementation of these cases for nearly a decade, there has been no comprehensive analysis of what these cases mean for conditions of confinement. That is, if children are different for constitutional purposes at the moment of sentencing, surely, they are still different when transported to a correctional facility and confined by the state. This Paper seeks to close that gap in the literature by making two specific contributions: first, by arguing that the Court’s juvenile sentencing decisions impose affirmative obligations upon states regarding youth conditions of confinement; and second, by articulating a standard for measuring when youth conditions of confinement violate the Eighth Amendment. As long as the United States persists in its extreme juvenile sentencing practices, the project of articulating what constitutes cruel and unusual youth confinement remains crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The starting point of this paper is an outline of the Chinese perspective on the status of the death penalty in international law. According to Article 1 of the Chinese Constitution of 4 December 1982 (revised 2018), the People's Republic of China is led by the Chinese Communist Party and guided by Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought and the contributions of other Chinese leaders. Therefore, in the second part of the contribution the relationship between Sino-Marxist ideology and the death penalty is discussed. The third part is dedicated to the death penalty in Chinese legal history. The topic of the fourth part is the death penalty under the PRC's law. In the fifth part, a few aspects of the death penalty considered negative by legal scholars in the PRC are discussed. Finally, it is noted that the death penalty has been abolished in certain regions of the PRC. Not all the nuances and details concerning the death penalty in the PRC could be discussed here, with some simplification proving inevitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archives of Criminology / Archiwum Kryminologii is the property of Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Legal Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The death penalty in Malaysia is a British colonial legacy that has undergone significant scrutiny in recent times. While the Malaysian Federal Constitution 1957 provides that 'no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty save in accordance with law', there are several criminal offences (including drug-related crimes) that impose the mandatory and discretionary death penalty. Using Benford and Snow's framing processes, this paper reviews death penalty politics in Malaysia by analysing the rhetoric of abolitionists and retentionists. The abolitionists, comprising activist lawyers and non-government organisations, tend to use 'human rights' and 'injustice' frames, which humanise the 'criminal' and gain international support. The retentionists, such as victims' families, use a 'victims' justice' frame emphasising the 'inhuman' nature of violent crimes. In addition, the retentionist state shifts between 'national security' and 'national development' frames. This paper finds that death penalty politics in Malaysia is predominantly a politics of framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chances of reform or rehabilitation of the accused is one of the important mitigating circumstances in criminal sentencing. In Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (AIR 1980 SC), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of death penalty in India. However, the Court restricted it to Rarest of Rare cases. The Court said that a balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances is to be prepared and due regard must be given to the chances of reform/rehabilitation as a mitigating circumstance. This paper revolves around the central theme of chances of reform as a mitigating circumstance in death penalty cases and the procedures followed by the Courts to determine the same. Since the Bachan Singh judgment, it has been noticed in several cases on death penalty that the Supreme Court has either accepted or rejected the chances of reform without conducting any due inquiry on the reformative potential of the convict. This raises a serious question on the fairness of procedure under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution as these two Articles also applies at the stage of sentencing. However, in some of the recent judgments of the Supreme Court and of the Delhi High Court, as a course correction exercise, some guidelines and procedures have been laid down to determine the chances of reform as a mitigating circumstance. The Courts have admitted that the task of determination of reform has not attracted serious attention of the sentencing courts in the past. Under the procedures evolved, the responsibility has been entrusted upon the Probation Officer under Probation of Offenders Act, 1958 to determine the same. This is a welcome step in the judicial administration of death penalty in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars do not agree on where Augustine exactly stands regarding capital punishment and whether his position is still relevant for debates today. This paper establishes Augustine's starting point for his considerations on the death penalty, identifies the scriptural input into his views, both critical and supportive of capital punishment, and, finally, examines how he approaches concrete cases of people facing the death penalty. On this basis, it makes a somewhat new proposal for understanding how Augustine sees capital punishment as legitimate in principle but problematic in concrete cases, in particular, cases involving the church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Trabajos y Comunicaciones is the property of Universidad Nacional de La Plata and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bamboo & Silk is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The European integration process of Albania is bound to fulfillment of the accession criteria, a political criteria related to stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, rule of law and protection of human rights. Protection of human rights is a core value for the EU as well as a precondition for candidate countries. The European Commission, through the annual progress reports, monitors protection of human rights and compliance of the domestic legislation with international human rights instruments; particularly the European Convention of Human Rights. Also, the Commission evaluates cooperation with the European Court of Human Rights and executions of the Court's decisions. The paper aims to analyze implementation of the acquis and European standards on the abolishment of the death penalty and on prevention of torture and ill-treatment. The paper considers the progress reports and some of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights on prevention of torture and ill-treatment. According to the progress reports, the main conclusion is that Albania has an adequate legal framework that guarantees human rights, but the main concern is still the implementation of legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the process of punitive reform through a cultural theory lens. The existing literature focuses on high-end punishments of historical pedigree e.g. imprisonment or the death penalty. This paper instead takes as its focus low-end, contemporary punishments. In doing so, it provides original insights into the utility a cultural methodology can bring to understanding punitive reform in the digital age. It tests the applicability of Philip Smith's theory of the cultural life of punishment to case studies of the Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) and its replacements in England and Wales, the Criminal Behaviour Order and the Injunction. The ASBO was a punitive zeitgeist of its time becoming rooted in popular culture. However, it was ultimately abolished after attracting a predominantly negative cultural narrative. Thus far, after attracting some controversy at the legislative stage, the Criminal Behaviour Order and Injunction have received minimal scrutiny, despite being more problematic than their predecessor. This paper argues that the lower cultural impacts of the new punishments are responsible for the lack of scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of a punishment such as Death Penalty in contemporary India presupposes a blameless, unmarred Criminal Justice System. When a court decides to take the life of a human being, with the intention to punish for a wrong deed, it assumes that all the chains in the machinery that led to the conviction of this man are faultless. Through this paper, the authors aim to analyze the procedures of criminal justice that take place in our country. The purpose of this paper is to understand whether this brutal punishment relies on a system that is just, fair and dependable. The authors introduce their stance on the issue with the help of a contemporary Indian case. Then, the processes of investigation and collection of evidence by the police are scrutinized. Further, decisions of the judiciary are analyzed to develop an understanding of the methods of the judiciary. Later, the final stage of criminal justice, the executive clemency, is broadly analyzed. Once the system that awards this punishment is scrutinized, the authors attempt to prove the alleged brutality of the punishment by analyzing its impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intertwinement of human rights and capital punishment has been an enduring issue, invoking populous sentiments from both sides of the divide. The Commonwealth Caribbean in particular, has been confronted with unique circumstances in the last decade on the administration of the death penalty. This article explores three areas pertinent to understanding the long standing debate regarding capital punishment in Trinidad and Tobago; the constitutionality of the death penalty, 'barriers' to its application and contemporary arguments regarding law reform. The first section of this paper examines the constitution, existing statute and case law to illustrate the legality of the death penalty in Trinidad and Tobago. The second section elucidates on the human rights factor involved in the logistical application of the death penalty in the Commonwealth Caribbean, implications of the landmark Privy Council Pratt ruling and delays involved in the actual application of capital punishment in Trinidad and Tobago. The third portion of this article focuses on government attempts at constitutional amendment, abolition of the Privy Council and potential resultant human rights violations. This paper concludes that while the death penalty is constitutional within Trinidad and Tobago, there is a virtual moratorium on its application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historical Journal / Historijski Zbornik is the property of Drustvo za Hrvatsku Povjesnicu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper attempts to establish that capital punishment is not rational and cannot be rationalized without suicidally destroying the very ground on which lawful and rational punishment bases itself. It argues that in capital punishment, just as in any lawful punishment, the criminal is both held (humanly) rational and therefore culpable. But, unlike other forms of punishment, in capital punishment, the condemned is at the same time, held as irrational and irredeemable, beyond reform, and therein outside the ambit of rationality and humanity. In this sense a fundamental aporia is reached in rationalizing capital punishment because of the contradiction between the basis of punishment (the human as rational) and its operational logic (the condemned person as beyond reform therein irrational). Expressed another way, the judge proclaims a form of infallibility in their reasoning where the incorrigibility of the judgment is horrifically demonstrated and ironically reflected (and projected) in the incorrigibility of the condemned. This broad argument is pursued in two parts; one part interprets canonical texts such as Hobbes, Hegel and Foucault, while the second part interprets the Supreme Court of India's jurisprudence around the death penalty. While these are very different discourses it will be shown that they share much common ground in their expressing—and negotiating—the fundamental problem as described above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to settle the controversy around Kant's notorious discussion of maternal infanticide in the 'Doctrine of Right' of 1797. How should a state punish an unmarried mother who has killed her newborn infant? The text (at DoR VI 335–37) is obscure. Three readings have been defended in the literature: 1. Lenience. Maternal infanticide does not count as murder; so, capital punishment is inappropriate. On this view, the child does not enjoy the full recognition of the law (this is the standard view). 2. Temporary privilege. Lenience should prevail as long as social attitudes are barbaric and treating maternal infanticide like regular cases of murder is perceived to be unjust. The regular punishment for murder will be appropriate once sexual mores have changed. The child will then enjoy the full protection of the law (Hruschka, Varden). 3. No lenience. Capital punishment, though it appears to be unjust, is actually just and ought to be applied. Any child, whether born to married parents or not, enjoys the full protection of the law (Brandt, Uleman). Based on a close examination of the passage and the context of contemporary laws and attitudes, Kant is not, it will be argued, advocating lenience but certain legislative reforms, which are needed to dispel the perception that capital punishment is unjust. Progressive legislation will change social attitudes, not vice versa. Moreover, it will be shown that Kant does not, appearances notwithstanding, endorse the thesis that a child born out of wedlock has been smuggled into the state like 'prohibited goods' or 'contraband merchandise', which would deprive the child of the protection of the state; that is the view with which Kant saddles Cesare Beccaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Youth violence and knife crime is increasing dramatically, so much so it has been described as a global epidemic. The social, economic and political forces fuelling this rise mean that minority groups are particularly affected. Aim: This paper reviews the literature primarily from a UK perspective, and illustrates the disparate factors that are influencing the rise in youth violence and knife crime and illustrates the complexities of integrating the perspectives of different disciplines into coherent intervention strategies. Method: We conducted a systematic review of the literature that explores both the causes of increasing youth violence and knife crime as well as some of the interventions that have attempted to deal with the problem. Results: A complex interplay of social, economic, mental health and political factors underpin the increase in youth violence and knife crime. An uneasy tension exists between a traditional criminal justice system-based approach based upon deterrence and punishment, and a more liberal preventative model focusing on adolescent mental health. None of the interventions thus far have been particularly effective. Conclusion: Youth violence and knife crime is a global social issue that causes untold suffering to individuals, families and communities as well as fear that reverberates through society. Interventions have often been devised through the lens of particular disciplines or ideologies. Integrating these perspectives into a coherent approach that is actually effective demands greater co-operation, dialogue and mutual understanding between disciplines and agencies, as well as a robust framework for the evidence-based assessment of outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most judicial, regulatory, and administrative systems, at least formally, are concerned with the fairness and transparency of their decisions concerning the public. Fairness and transparency of criminal justice operations are critical to creating trust in the legal system and assuring people that the larger social system is legitimate and worthy of support. However, deviations from objective and fair decision-making can be concealed when key actors who are responsible for deciding outcomes in their organizations are also responsible for collecting, assembling, evaluating, and presenting the information on which their decisions are based. Under these conditions such systems are at risk of what we term "endogenous system bias," where data are acquired and altered in ways to justify desired outcomes that are neither fair nor transparent. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) develop a general model of decision-making constraints that can produce endogenous system bias, (2) review research on endogenous system bias at two key decision stages in one institution: the criminal justice system and (3) conduct an empirical examination of the potential effect of endogenous system bias on law enforcement investigations and prosecutorial charging in a sample of criminal homicide cases in the USA. Implications for law, policy, and social scientific methodology are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Asia remains a rich field of study for death penalty scholars because a comparatively large number of Asian countries continue to statutorily impose capital punishment, despite a worldwide trend to abolish it. Asian countries (excluding China) handed down at least one-third of the 28,670 death sentences worldwide in 2021. The Philippines, the first Asian country to abolish the death penalty (in 1987), is also of interest because it continues to be the arena for one of the most ferocious battles between the retentionists, who advocate for the retention or reinstatement of capital punishment, and the abolitionists. While the 1987 Philippine Constitution abolished the death penalty, it also granted Congress the power to reimpose capital punishment through legislation. This shifted the arena of contention to Congress, rather than the judiciary, as retentionists and abolitionists battled it out through legislative skirmishes (Kim, 2016: 606) that often spilled out to street rallies and raucous public debates. Barely a few months after the 1987 Constitution abolished the death penalty, the heated campaign for its reinstatement ensued and culminated in the reimposition of capital punishment in 1993. Immediately thereafter, a strong abolitionist campaign commenced, and successfully occasioned the second abolition of capital punishment in 2006, a clear sign not only of the contentious nature of the debate but, also, of the vacillating tendency or 'mixed feelings' of Philippine policy-makers. Since then, the abolitionists managed to successfully stave off the reinstatement of capital punishment. This article examines the specific strategies, tactics and framing narrative that may have contributed to the abolitionists' successful campaigns resisting the strong retentionist efforts to reimpose the death penalty after its second abolition in 2006, up to the period of 2016-22, when President Rodrigo Duterte attempted to reinstate it. The paper will compare the Philippine campaign strategy with those employed by transnational activists who successfully campaigned for the passage of various United Nations Resolutions, calling for a moratorium on the imposition of death penalty in 2007 and succeeding years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007, the High Court of Malawi, sitting as a constitutional court, declared that the mandatory sentence of death for murder was unconstitutional. At the time of the High Court's invalidation of the mandatory death penalty, Malawi's prisons had over 190 prisoners serving their sentences as a result of the imposition of the mandatory death penalty. Some of these prisoners were on death row, while others had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. When the mandatory death penalty was declared unconstitutional, the High Court also directed that all prisoners serving their sentences for murder should be brought before the High Court so that they could receive individual sentences taking into account the circumstances of the offense, the offender, as well as the interests of the victim(s). This paper interrogates the application of the sentencing discretion that was introduced with the outlawing of the mandatory death penalty in Malawi. Specifically, the paper analyzes decisions that have emerged from the resentencing of capital offenders in so far as judges have either considered or refused to consider the relevance of post-conviction factors during the resentencing. It is this paper's central finding that a refusal to consider postconviction factors, as some judges held, was not only unjustified but was also contrary to Malawi's Criminal Procedure and Evidence Code and the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi. This refusal, the paper argues, resulted in sentencing discrepancies as well as a failure to properly utilize the discretion vested in the courts for purposes of sentencing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the discursive structures adopted by the Iranian state in the context of public execution. Specifically, we argue that the state's insistence upon executing an offender in public is nourished by an intangible yet efficacious violence that has politically and psychically determinative consequences. As such, what is foregrounded in this paper are not the legal aspects of executing the offender and the act itself, but the visibility of this act and its after-effects in terms of the formation of particular subjectivity. The paper's analysis draws on examinations of the psycho-discursive structure of the punitive state from the points of view of thinkers such as Foucault, Butler and Lacan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Vienna Declaration 1993 is an important instrument that provides a platform for creating a national human rights plan. This paper focuses on the practical aspect of localising international law in the drafting process of Thailand's human rights action plan. It argues that while the drafting process can serve as an argument against the existing criticism concerning the "supra-national" character of international law in the alienation of the local participation, the process also gives rise to the dilemma of public participation, which the paper calls "a national standardisation" on important human rights issues, namely the rights to social welfare of migrant workers and their dependants, and the abolition of capital punishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The death penalty has been the subject of controversy for a long time. South Asian countries have found themselves with this controversy by acquiring an ambivalent approach towards the death penalty. Out of eight South Asian countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan retain the death penalty law, and firmly believe that the death penalty can deter people from committing future crimes, whereas Sri Lanka and Maldives have chosen to retain the death penalty law but have abolished it in practice. Conversely, Nepal and Bhutan are the only two countries that have abolished death penalty both in law and practice. In this context, this comparative study of death penalty trials explores the approach taken by the judiciary of two South Asian jurisdictions, Bangladesh and India, towards the death penalty. This paper utilizes the findings of two original empirical research projects that explored judges' opinions on the retention and administration of the death penalty in both jurisdictions. Amnesty International death penalty reports along with the case judgements are used, which helped to portray the true approach and flaws in the death penalty trials in both the jurisdictions. The paper will assess the death penalty trials and approach of the different stakeholders in the trial to highlight the distinct approaches taken by the two jurisdictions towards the death penalty. The paper argues that in both countries there is inconsistency in sentencing, the social cry for justice is prioritized over convicts' rights and, from judges to legal representatives, all the stakeholders involved in a criminal trial hold a convictive approach, making a criminal justice system which presumes justice is served by awarding the death penalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on public attitudes to the death penalty has been predominantly understood through single nation-states, especially within the USA. Examinations of international differences in citizens' support for the death penalty have been scarce, particularly among continents with a high volume of retentionist nations (e.g. Asia). In this paper, we draw on a dataset of 135,000 people from across 81 nations to examine differences in death penalty support. We find that residents of retentionist nations are generally more supportive of the death penalty than those from abolitionist nations. But this general difference masks important differences both within and between countries. At the country-level, residents of abolitionist nations with autocratic political systems and those with higher homicide levels were more likely to support the death penalty than residents of other abolitionist nations. At the individual level, greater support for a strong dictatorial-type leader and perceptions of political corruption are associated with increased support for the death penalty, but only in abolitionist nations. By contrast, more frequent religious worship, perceived egalitarianism in a nation, and support for the political performance of government reduced death penalty support in abolitionist nations but increased support in retentionist nations, while belief in individual responsibility and critical views towards ethnic minorities increased support for the death penalty across both abolitionist and retentionist nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is absolutely essential to consider the abject ineffectiveness of counsel in a significant number of death penalty cases involving defendants with serious mental disabilities and how such ineffectiveness is often (scandalously) accepted by reviewing courts. We must also assess all of the concerns raised in this excellent paper by Hiromoto and colleagues through the filter of therapeutic jurisprudence as a way to guide counsel to thoroughly investigate all aspects of such cases (especially those involving defendants with PTSD) and to present substantial mitigating evidence to the fact finders in the sorts of cases the authors are discussing., (© 2022 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.)

This article focuses on the metaphysical revenge of Lili Kasticher (1923-1973), apparently the only female inmate to have written as an individual at Auschwitz-Birkenau. While a prisoner in the women's camp, she wrote from April to November 1944. Her notes were concealed on her person until her liberation in spring 1945. Possessing a piece of paper or pencil stub was absolutely forbidden in Auschwitz-Birkenau under penalty of death. Hence, little to no creative writing was accomplished by Auschwitz inmates, except in the virtually sole instance of the "Sonderkommando" members, who documented everyday life at the camp in the hope that someone would find the material after the war, as indeed occurred. Another small group of inmates who had managed to get hold of paper and writing implements consisted of a handful of Polish political prisoners or others close to them. Facing punishment of certain death, no women are known to have written at Auschwitz-Birkenau, except for Lili Kasticher. Her works included a political-social manifesto entitled "Rules of Behavior," intended as a guide to survival for herself and her blockmates. We should understand the power of these writings as a means of rebellion and metaphysical revenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]