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Texas and the Death Penalty

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Texas and the Death Penalty
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|TEXAS & THE DEATH PENALTY |
|SOC. 312 / |
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Putting people to death for breaking the law is a punishment that has been in existence for thousands of years of human history and has been enforced in all corners of the world by different societies. Capital punishment has become a very controversial subject that is widely accepted by some people and harshly protested by others especially in today’s American society where differences in opinion about subjects such as this are as broad and complicated as the legal information and research information that has been published about it. This is also one of those subjects where it is impossible, because of these differences for there to be any sort of universal agreement among law makers, law breakers, conforming citizens, communities and societies because it involves punishment by the decision of taking or sparing of a human life.

In the American context, when the topic of the death penalty arises, a word that might come to mind is “Texas”. Texas is probably the most popular state in the U.S. when it comes to this legal sanction because of its notorious history of carrying out over four hundred executions since 1974 and executing more offenders than any other death penalty retentionist jurisdiction. This reputation is what fueled the idea for our group paper. This paper intends to discuss the socio-economic effects, political and deterrent effects of capital punishment in Texas and how it


Cited: Phillips, S. (2009). LEGAL DISPARITIES IN THE CAPITAL OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 99(3), 717-755.  Retrieved February 16, 2010, from ProQuest Sociology Stolzenberg, L., D’Alessio, S.. (2004). CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, EXECUTION PUBLICITY AND MURDER IN HOUSTON, TEXAS. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 94(2), 351-379.  Retrieved February 16, 2010, from ProQuest Sociology Shapiro, M. (2009). An Overdose of Dangerousness: How "Future Dangerousness" Catches the Least Culpable Capital Defendants and Undermines the Rationale for the Executions It Supports Fagan, J.. (2005). DETERRENCE AND THE DEATH PENALTY: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF NEW EVIDENCE Shea, M. (2010, February). David R. Dow. Texas Monthly, 38(2), 48-50. Schwartz, J. (2010, January 21). Ruling backs judge who rejected post-5 p.m. appeal. New York Times, 18. McKinley, J. (2009, December 12). Low i.q. murderer is executed in Texas. New York Times, 20. Kovandzic, T., Vieraitis, L., & Boots, D. (2009, November). Does the Death penalty save lives?. Criminology & Public Policy, 8(4), 803-843. Sorensen, J., & Pilgrim, R. L. (2006). Deterrence: Does It Prevent Others from Committing Murder? In Lethal Injection: Capital Punishment In Texas during the Modern Era (pp. 20-76). Austin: University of Texas Press. Bedau, H. (1997). Part III: The Controversy Over deterrence and Incapacitation. In The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies (pp. 135-176). New York: Oxford University Press. Gibbs, J. (1975). Deterrence, Types of Deterrence, and Crime Rates. In Crime, Punishment and Deterrence (pp. 29-56). New York: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc. Barnett, A. (1981, March - April). The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Test of Some Recent Studies. Retrieved February 17, 2010, from JSTOR - Trusted Archives For Scholarship: http://www.jstor.org Ehrlich, I Capital Punishment, 2006-Statistical Tables . (2007, December). Retrieved February 2010 Capital Punishment, 2005. (2006). 1-17. Reevaluating the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Model Data Uncertainty. (2006, December ). pp. 1-38. Groner JI (2002). "Lethal injection: a stain on the face of medicine". BMJ 325 (7371): 1026–8. "So Long as They Die: Lethal Injections in the United States ," Human Rights Watch, 2006, 18(1).
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