Anti-Death Penalty Movement Research Articles

Let Them Get Their Voices Out: The Death Row 10, Radical Abolitionists, and the Anti–Death Penalty Movement in Illinois (1996–2011)

Let Them Get Their Voices Out: The Death Row 10, Radical Abolitionists, and the Anti–Death Penalty Movement in Illinois (1996–2011)

Framing Capital Punishment in Japan: Avoidance, Ambivalence, and Atonement

This article examines how two of Japan’s largest newspapers frame death penalty issues. Through a content analysis of 7,153 Asahi and Nikkei articles in the 66-month period from January 1, 2007 to June 30, 2012, 11 death penalty frames are identified: inevitability, atonement by dying, atonement by living, victims’ rights and emotions, human rights, miscarriage of justice, calls for discussion, life without parole, deterrence, public support, and retribution. In addition to frames, we examined who the main voices are in each article on capital punishment. We found that avoidance and ambivalence are the two main approaches taken by Asahi and Nikkei to cover death penalty issues, and the most surprising finding is the high salience of atonement as a frame for thinking about capital punishment. In Japan, atonement is used to justify (atone by dying) and oppose (atone by living) the death penalty. Although atonement by living in prison and atonement by dying at the gallows imply radically different outcomes, the flexibility of the atonement frame may suggest new possibilities for Japan’s anti-death penalty movement.

The 'Midnight Assassination Law' and Minnesota's Anti-Death Penalty Movement, 1849-1911

This article traces the history of Minnesota's anti-death penalty movement and the 1889 Minnesota - dubbed by contemporaries as the midnight assassination law - requiring private, nighttime executions. That authored by Minnesota legislator Day Smith, restricted the number of execution spectators, prohibited newspapers from printing any execution details, and provided that only the fact of the execution could be lawfully printed. Also commonly referred to as the John Day Smith law, this Minnesota statute was challenged as being unconstitutional by Minnesota newspapers after those newspapers printed details of a botched hanging and were charged with violating the law. The article discusses how Minnesota's midnight assassination law affected the state's abolitionist movement and influenced America's death penalty debate. In particular, the article recounts how two court decisions upholding the constitutionality of the - one by the Minnesota Supreme Court and one by the United States Supreme Court - contributed to the rise of private, nighttime executions in America.

The Power of Incremental Outcomes: How Small Victories and Defeats Affect Social Movement Organizations

This article examines how incremental outcomes—gains and losses that stop short of decisive victory or defeat—influence movement organizations, particularly in terms of the public financial support they enjoy and the amount of money they subsequently allocate to programmatic expenses. Drawing on data from the US anti-death penalty movement, I find that small gains and losses significantly influence support and spending patterns. Movement success initially increases both financial contributions and programmatic spending, but over time, decreases both. Moreover, the particular effect is mediated by the type of venue in which the outcome takes place: formal institutions produce different rates of increase and decline than informal ones. These differences have important implications for movement organizations' choice of venue in which they make their claims while emphasizing the importance of considering incremental outcomes not only as end products of contention, but as inputs that are consequential for future movement development.

Rebel and a Cause: Caryl Chessman and the Politics of the Death Penalty in Postwar California, 1948-1974

This book uses the 1960 execution of Caryl Chessman as a lens for examining how politics and debates about criminal justice became a volatile mix that ignited postwar California. The effects of those years continue to be felt as the state's three-strikes law and expanding prison-construction program spark heated arguments over rehabilitation and punishment. Known as the Red Light Bandit, Chessman allegedly stalked lovers' lanes in Los Angeles. Eventually convicted of rape and kidnapping, he was sentenced to death in 1948. In prison he gained significant notoriety as a writer, beginning with his autobiographical Cell 2455 Death Row (1954). In the following years Chessman presented himself not only as an innocent man but also as one rehabilitated from his prior life of crime. He acquired an enthusiastic audience among leading criminologists, liberal intellectuals, and ordinary citizens, many of whom engaged in protests to halt Chessman's execution. The book analyzes how Chessman convinced thousands of Californians to support him, and why Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, who opposed the death penalty, allowed the execution to go forward. It also demonstrates the intrinsic limits of the popular commitment to the rehabilitative ideal. This book places the Chessman case in a broad cultural and historical context, relating it to histories of prison reform, the anti-death penalty movement, the popularization of psychology, and the successive rise and decline of the New Left and the more enduring rise of the New Right.

Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972-1994.

While most western democracies have renounced the death penalty, capital punishment enjoys vast and growing support in the United States. A significant and vocal minority, however, continues to oppose it. Against Capital Punishment is the first full account of anti-death penalty activism in America during the years since the ten-year moratorium on executions ended. Building on in-depth interviews with movement leaders and the records of key abolitionist organizations, this work traces the struggle against the pro-death penalty backlash that has steadily gained momentum since the 1970s. It reviews the conservative turn in the courts which, over the last two decades, has forced death penalty opponents to rely less on the litigation strategies that once served them well. It describes their efforts to mount a broad-based educational and political assault on what they see as the most cruel, racist, ineffective, and expensive manifestation of a criminal justice system gone wrong. Despite the efforts of death-penalty opponents, executions in the United States are on the increase. Against Capital Punishment diagnoses the reasons for the failure to mobilize widespread opposition to executions, and assesses the prospects for opposition to capital punishment in the future of the United States.

Michael Mello, Against the Death Penalty: The Relentless Dissents of Justices Brennan and Marshall, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 331. $45.00 (ISBN 1-555-53261-6). - Herbert H. Haines, Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 253. $35.00 (ISBN 0-195-08838-7).

Michael Mello, Against the Death Penalty: The Relentless Dissents of Justices Brennan and Marshall, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 331. 35.00 (ISBN 0-195-08838-7). - Volume 16 Issue 3

Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972-1994.

Journal Article Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994. By Herbert H. Haines. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. xii, 253 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-19-508838-7.) Get access David W. Levy David W. Levy University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 84, Issue 3, December 1997, Page 1155, https://doi.org/10.2307/2953242 Published: 01 December 1997

Book Reviews

Journal of American CultureVolume 20, Issue 4 p. 113-124 Book Reviews First published: 23 March 2004 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734X.1997.00113.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994. Herbert H. Haines The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age. John Horgan Encyclopedia U.S.A.: The Encyclopedia of the United States of America Past and Present. Bonfire of the Humanities: Television, Subliteracy, and Long-Term Memory Loss. David Marc Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. Rosemarie Garland Thomson, ed The American Century: Varieties of Culture in Modern Times. Norman F. Cantor And the Winner is…. Using Awards Programs to Promote Your Company and Encourage Your Employees. John Leverence Washington's Partisan War, 1775–1783. Mark V. Kwasny Textual Vehicles: The Automobile in American Literature. Roger N. Casey Humanistic Aspects of Technical Communication. Edited by Paul M. Dombrowski Writings and Drawings. James Thurber. Edited by Garrison Keillor Radios: Short Takes on Life and Culture. Jerome Stern Dublin Pub Life & Lore: An Oral History. Kevin C. Kearns Maps of Heaven, Maps of Hell: Religious Terror as Memory from the Puritans to Stephen King. Edward J. Ingebretsen, S.J. Armonk, M.E. Sharpe Powerplay: Toys As Popular Culture. Don Fleming Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Edward R. Tufte Parallel Tracks: The Railroad and Silent Cinema. Lynne Kirby Volume20, Issue4Winter 1997Pages 113-124 RelatedInformation

Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972-1994

Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972-1994

Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972-1994

Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972-1994

Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994

(1997). Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 52-53.

Flawed Executions, the Anti-Death Penalty Movement, and the Politics of Capital Punishment

Flawed Executions, the Anti-Death Penalty Movement, and the Politics of Capital Punishment

Flawed Executions, the Anti-Death Penalty Movement, and the Politics of Capital Punishment

“Suddenly realized grievances” (Useem 1980; Walsh 1981) play an important but largely unacknowledged role in the struggle over capital punishment in the United States. One form such grievances may take is that of “flawed executions”—executions in which public sensibilities are offended by a breakdown in routine procedures of convicting murderers and putting them to death. This paper discusses four ways in which executions may be flawed: executions may be technically botched, convicts may not play their assigned roles, the prescribed solemnity of the death chamber may be compromised, and finally, irregularities in conviction and sentencing may come to light. When abolitionist organizations and the press make issues of these flaws, they become factors in death penalty politics. An analysis of newspaper coverage suggests that flawed convictions, in which possibly innocent persons either suffer or narrowly escape execution, are especially potent threats to public support for capital punishment. The paper concludes by stressing the centrality of social movement organizations and the media in transforming underpublicized or affect-neutral events into suddenly realized grievances.