Ethical Exception: Capital Punishment in the Figure of Sovereignty

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511581069.011

11 - Ethical Exception: Capital Punishment in the Figure of Sovereignty

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2009

Adam Thurschwell

Edited by

Austin Sarat and

Jennifer L. Culbert

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Austin Sarat: Affiliation:
Amherst College, Massachusetts
Jennifer L. Culbert: Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University

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Summary

Capital Punishment: Moral or Political

These are again interesting times to be thinking about the death penalty. Signs and portents seem to be everywhere. Closest to home, where only a few short years ago it was considered political suicide for a politician to be anything but gung ho in favor of executing wrongdoers, it has now become (almost) equally de rigueur to at least nod one's head in the direction of concerns about “making sure you get the right guy,” DNA testing, and other methods of lowering the near-certain probability (based on recent experience) of executing the factually innocent. It has even become politically feasible to advocate abolition. There are stronger indications as well, from former governor George Ryan's commutation of Illinois's entire death row, to moratorium efforts around the country, to legislative reforms that have been introduced at both state and federal levels. Even the current U.S. Supreme Court, not exactly the capital defendant's best friend despite the “death is different” mantra that has ostensibly guided its capital jurisprudence for 30 years, has begun to narrow the scope of the death penalty's application and to express impatience with incompetent capital counsel and lower courts whose cavalier attitude toward procedural irregularities in capital cases exceeds even its own.

Widening the focus and the historical framework a little, one finds even more significant signs of change. A growing number of nations are abolishing their death penalties, including some that were fervent practitioners of it in the recent past.

Type: Chapter
Information: States of Violence
War, Capital Punishment, and Letting Die
, pp. 270 - 296

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511581069.011 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

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