The Execution of the Innocent

Radelet and Bedau discuss the continuing and regular incidence of American trial courts sentencing innocent defendants to death, which was one of the problems that gave rise to the ABA\u27s moratorium on capital punishment

The Incremental Retributive Impact of a Death Sentence Over Life Without Parole

In this paper, the author takes a closer look at retribution, which is the primary justification for the death penalty today in the United States and the main component of the additional punishment imposed by the death penalty over and above life imprisonment without parole (LWOP). While all criminal punishments, to varying degrees, punish both the inmate and his or her family, this paper argues that the death penalty’s added punishment over LWOP often punishes the family just as much as the inmate, and after the execution the full brunt of the punishment falls on the family. This added impact disproportionately punishes women and children. The data comes from work with scores of death row inmates and their families over the past thirty-five years, including sharing “last visits” with approximately fifty of the inmates. The family members have not been convicted of any capital offense, so in this sense the death penalty punishes the innocent just as much as it punishes the guilty

The Role of Organized Religions in Changing Death Penalty Debates

In his Article, Professor Michael L. Radelet describes a global decline in the use of the death penalty, the United Nation\u27s progressively stronger stance against executions, and a growing opposition to capital punishment in the United States. This decrease is attributed to both empirical studies casting doubt on the death penalty\u27s efficacy in promoting its stated underlying goals, and to the increasingly vocal stance of religious leaders morally opposed to capital punishment. Nevertheless, the decline in other justifications for capital punishment has been met with increasing reliance on retribution as the primary argument in its support. Professor Radelet argues that retribution\u27s moral, rather than empirical, base makes it an issue largely within the purview of religious denominations, the traditional source of a community\u27s moral authority. Professor Radelet predicts that religious leaders\u27 increasing opposition to the flawed administration of the death penalty, rather than their lesser support for the abstract concept of capital punishment, will tip the balance toward its abolition in America

Race and Capital Punishment

Whether it be lynching or legally-imposed capital punishment, the threat or use of death as a punishment has been a powerful means of class and race intimidation throughout American history. In the nineteenth century, statutes that explicitly considered race were not uncommon; in Virginia, for example, the statutes of 150 years ago listed five capital crimes for whites and 70 for black slaves. Today, historians interested in capital punishment use records of state compensations to slave owners to learn how many slaves were executed