Death Penalty Politics and Symbolic Law in Russia

In contemporary Russia there is widespread support for the death penalty. Recent Russian presidents have endorsed the nation’s entry into the European Community (EC). The dilemma is that the price of membership into the EC is total abolition of capital punishment. The Russian Duma is much less popular than the president, even though it sides with public opinion in supporting capital punishment. Since 1997, these conflicting political positions have been temporarily neutralized by leaving capital punishment legislation in place but allowing the Russian president to offer clemency to all sentenced to death. In 1999, the Constitutional Court of Russia placed a moratorium on all death sentences until jury trials are re-introduced throughout the nation

Capital and Punishment: Resource Scarcity Increases Endorsement of the Death Penalty

Faced with punishing severe offenders, why do some prefer imprisonment whereas others impose death? Previous research exploring death penalty attitudes has primarily focused on individual and cultural factors. Adopting a functional perspective, we propose that environmental features may also shape our punishment strategies. Individuals are attuned to the availability of resources within their environments. Due to heightened concerns with the costliness of repeated offending, we hypothesize that individuals tend toward elimination-focused punishments during times of perceived scarcity. Using global and United States data sets (studies 1 and 2), we find that indicators of resource scarcity predict the presence of capital punishment. In two experiments (studies 3 and 4), we find that activating concerns about scarcity causes people to increase their endorsement for capital punishment, and this effect is statistically mediated by a reduced willingness to risk repeated offenses. Perceived resource scarcity shapes our punishment preferences, with important policy implications

Capital punishment

Some crimes are so terrible that the only appropriate punishment is death. Furthermore, the existence of the death penalty deters violent crime. Capital punishment means condemning a criminal to death, regardless of the method of execution used. Execution by the state has a long history, and legislation around the issue is still changing. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/3362

State executions, deterrence, and the incidence of murder

This study employs a panel of U.S. state-level data over the years 1978-1997 to estimate the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Particular attention is paid to problems of endogeneity bias arising from the non-random assignment of death penalty laws across states and a simultaneous relationship between murders and the deterrence probabilities. The primary innovation of the analysis lies in the estimation of a simultaneous equations system whose identification is based upon the employment of instrumental variables motivated by the theory of public choice. The estimation results suggest that structural estimates of the deterrent effect of capital punishment are likely to be downward biased due to the influence of simultaneity. Correcting for simultaneity, the estimates imply that a state execution deters approximately fourteen murders per year on average. Finally, the results also suggest that the announcement effect of capital punishment, as opposed to the existence of a death penalty provision, is the mechanism actually driving the deterrent effect associated with state executions.capital punishment, deterrence, executions, murder

A Good Murder

People are profoundly interested in crimes because the law and legal punishments are supposed to address the fundamental human craving for justice. Courts are embedded in this system of law because we do not rust individuals alone or groups to judge fairly. This essay will describe a pattern which emerged when researchers examined all homicide cases in the state of New Jersey during the years immediately after the reimposition of capital punishment in 1982. Particularly relevant is the pattern of capital punishment for urban and suburban murders, and how those cases were regarded by law enforcement, the media, and the public

Commentary

Ronald J. Tabak, Chair of the Committee on the Death Penalty for the American Bar Association\u27s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, discusses the Section\u27s purpose in organizing Forhdam University School of Law\u27s panel discussion on Politics and the Death Penalty. The goal was to illuminate the variety of effects of a widespread perception that the belief of legislators, governors, prosecutors, judges, clemency boards, political candidates and others that the public is overwhelmingly in support of capital punishment. The Section aimed to bring together knowledgeable people from a variety of perspectives to discuss (a) how the capital punishment system and the political process have been affected by the perceived overwhelming popular support for the death penalty, (b) the role that reportage - or the lack thereof - has had on public attitudes about the death penalty and (c) whether opponents of capital punishment can survive politically. Taback then gives an overview of what was discussed by each panelist, which included Norman Redlich, former Dean of New York University Law School, James Coleman, Shabata Sundiata Waglini, Attorney General Ernest Preate, Jr., Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of the Alabama Capital Representation Resource Center, journalist Nat Hentoff, New York State Assemblywoman Susan John, and Chief Justice Exum of the North Carolina Supreme Court discuss the issue of the death penalty in America

Saddam Hussein & Capital Punishment

The 2006 Pre-Trib Study Group Conference focused on Post Modernism and dispensationalism. One of the things we learned is that Post Moderns do not believe in absolute truth, which explains why they usually talk about how they feel about things. After all if there is no absolute truth then everything is relative to how an individual feels about things. These folks are often repulsed when someone makes declarations based upon the truth of God’s Word. Since Christianity is a truth-based religion, based upon God’s revelation to man, then it follows that one has to believe in absolute truth. If absolute truth exists then so does universal truth, which means that something is true for all people, whether they recognize it or not

Determinants of Death: State Variation in Capital Punishment Policy

This research uses logistic regression analysis to determine how certain variables impact state capital punishment policy. The analysis will specifically focus on the determinants of whether or not a state uses capital punishment. The results should prove to be practically useful to those that support and oppose the use of capital punishment because it can help activists determine where they should focus their efforts and resources to influence capital punishment policy

Jury Challenges, Capital Punishment, and Labat v. Bennett: A Reconciliation

Reasoning that one who opposes the death penalty may deny the state an impartial trial, most American jurisdictions sustain a challenge for cause to a prospective juror with such scruples. Recent decisions, attempting to ensure that the jury truly represents a cross-section of the community, have, however, suggested that due process may be denied when an identifiable class of the community is summarily excluded from the jury cross-section. The legitimacy of this theory may well be tested in the Supreme Court this term, as two cases raise the question whether capital punishment objectors are such a class. This comment seeks to assess the validity of the due process approach in the context of traditional justifications for the challenge to the capital punishment objector