NCJ Number
195386
Journal
Deviant Behavior Volume: 23 Issue: 4 Dated: July-August 2002 Pages: 385-415
Date Published
2002
Length
31 pages
Annotation
This paper explores extreme support for capital punishment in the months before and after Tennessee's first execution in 40 years, using data obtained from newspaper reports, letters to the editor, interviews with death penalty opponents, and the authors' own experiences.
Abstract
On April 19, 2000, Tennessee executed Robert Glen Coe for the 1979 rape and murder of Cary Ann Medlin, an 8-year-old child. Coe's case and appeals, expressions of public support for and opposition to his execution, and the death penalty issue in general received massive publicity in the State's media before the execution. A second high profile death penalty case in Tennessee, that of Philip Workman, kept the issue before the public in the year following Coe's execution. For this study, researchers read all news stories, editorials, and letters to the editor relevant to the death penalty for the 3-month period surrounding Coe's execution. In addition, letters to the editor in two other newspapers located in the area where the murder occurred were reviewed for a 5-month period surrounding the execution. Participant observation by the authors at a peaceful weekly demonstration on a busy street corner in Memphis both sparked an interest in understanding the untoward behavior of a small minority of those passing by and also provided an ample supply of anecdotal information to illustrate the concept of extreme support for the death penalty. The subjects of this research comprise only a small minority of individuals who not only support the death penalty but also express hostility or take some aggressive action against those who disagree with them on the issue. The findings from this study identified various manifestations of hostility toward opponents of the death penalty as well as hostility toward the condemned. Hostility toward opponents of the death penalty included spontaneous expressions of anger and hostility in public demonstrations; nonspontaneous expressions of anger and hostility in letters to the editor and anonymous messages; and expressions of a desire for violence against family members of opponents of the death penalty. The concluding sections of this paper draw on a number of theoretical perspectives to explore some of the emotional sources of extreme death penalty support and the reasons why abolitionists are perceived as so threatening. Given the cited theoretical linkages between community and extreme reaction to social protests, such issues and formulations provide potentially valuable insights into the nature of some community conflicts and their amelioration. 72 references