NCJ Number
175256
Editor(s)
W A Schabas
Date Published
1997
Length
270 pages
Annotation
Three articles, four book reviews, six documents, and a host of statistical tables discuss and document the use and abuse of capital punishment throughout the world.
Abstract
The first of three articles argues that capital punishment in the United States constitutes "legalized lynching," as both State and Federal courts have been indifferent to racial discrimination and incompetent legal representation for poor black defendants in capital cases. The other two articles address African perspectives on the abolition of the death penalty, as well as death penalty developments. The book reviews are for the following books: "The Rope, the Chair, and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990"; "Deadly Innocence?"; "The Machinery of Death: A Shocking Indictment of Capital Punishment in the United States"; and "Live From Death Row." The six documents pertinent to capital punishment in various regions and countries of the world are the International Tribunal for Rwanda; General Assembly Resolution Calling for a Moratorium on the Death Penalty; Constitution Court of the Republic of South Africa: State v. Makwanyane and Mchunu; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: Guerra v. Baptiste; United States Ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Reservations on the Death Penalty; and the Tunis Conference Declaration on the Death Penalty in the Legislation of Arab States. Statistics on capital punishment cover the status of the death penalty internationally; states that are abolitionist for all crimes, for ordinary crimes only, de facto, and that retain the death penalty; the number of abolitionist countries at year- end, 1980-1995; states parties to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; states parties to the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights; states parties to the American Convention on Human Rights That Have Abolished the Death Penalty; and states parties to the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty. U.S. statistics address the minimum age authorized for capital punishment; the number of executions, 1977-1995; method of execution; time between imposition of death sentence and execution, by race, 1977-93; and number sentenced to death and executed, and average time on death row. Subject index