Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Interpreting the Violent State
- PART I ON THE FORMS OF STATE KILLING
- PART II INVESTIGATING THE DISCOURSES OF DEATH
- 9 Death in the First Person
- 10 Open Secrets, or The Postscript of Capital Punishment
- 11 Ethical Exception: Capital Punishment in the Figure of Sovereignty
- 12 No Mercy
- Index
- References
11 - Ethical Exception: Capital Punishment in the Figure of Sovereignty
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Interpreting the Violent State
- PART I ON THE FORMS OF STATE KILLING
- PART II INVESTIGATING THE DISCOURSES OF DEATH
- 9 Death in the First Person
- 10 Open Secrets, or The Postscript of Capital Punishment
- 11 Ethical Exception: Capital Punishment in the Figure of Sovereignty
- 12 No Mercy
- Index
- References
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 ViolenceWar, Capital Punishment, and Letting Die, pp. 270 - 296Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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