Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The (Uncertain) 'Withering Away' of the Death Penalty Due to Decreasing Popularity and Super-Regulatory Costs

2018; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.3304003

1556-5068

Leona Deborah Jochnowitz,

Criminal Law and Evidence

This concept paper examines three new books on the death penalty, published from 2016-2018 for differing theses regarding possible abolition. Scholars during this period have interpreted the decreasing popularity of capital punishment and a super-regulatory costly legal environment as "the withering away" of the death penalty. The themes of the books center both on the slow demise of the death penalty due to expensive, time consuming legal regulation and racial inequality and on the expectations and upset results of the 2016 presidential race related to prospective Supreme Court appointments and the death penalty's judicial abolition. The end result is not certain.