Etiske dilemmaer: dødsstraf

Ny udgave 2019. Isbn: 9788712060895 I november 1892 hævede skarpretter Theodor Sejstrup sin bredbladede økse over halsen på den 29-årige Jens Nielsen i fængselsgården på Horsens Straffeanstalt. ”Hans henrettelse vil befri verden for et skrækindjagende uhyre” skrev The New York Times, for på trods af sin unge alder havde Jens Nielsen for længst gjort sig international berygtet som ondskaben par excellence. Han stod bag flere farlige indbrudstyverier, en brandkatastrofe i London af enorme dimensioner og nedbrændingen af fem gårde og et hus på Sjælland. Han havde siddet indespærret i flere lande og forsøgt at myrde tre fængselsbetjente i Horsens. Øksehugget blev skarpretterens sidste. Siden er ingen mennesker blevet henrettet i Danmark for forbrydelser begået i fredstid. Bogen belyser baggrunden for dette afgørende skel i retshistorien og går bag om en af Danmarks mest omtalte og berygtede forbrydere. Den fortæller om hans vej ind på forbryderbanen, om bekendtskabet med stifteren af Nordisk Film, om årsagen til hans had til offentlige myndigheder og i det hele taget om, hvordan det gik til, at en begavet ung mand endte på skafottet som øksens sidste offer.

Bogen er en enestående undersøgelse af dødsstraffens danske kulturhistorie fra reformationen og frem til den sidste danske henrettelse i fredstid i 1892.Henrettelserne var mange i 1500-tallet og første halvdel af 1600-tallet, og i hele Vesteuropa var dødstraffen indtil midten af 1700-tallet fast forankret i et religiøst verdensbillede og dens udførelse indskrevet i et ritual, som sikrede hele samfundetsopslutning. Ud over de forskellige former for henrettelse var udviklet et system af skærpelser, som blev brugt til at graduere straffen, alt efter forbrydelsens alvor. Det kunne være tortur og lemlæstelse både før og efter aflivningen eller den måde, som den døde kom eller ikke kom i jorden på. Fra midten af 1700-tallet ophørte den tætte binding imellem henrettelse og religion, og med forandrede forestillinger om straf og indførelsen af et egentligt fængselsvæsen blev henrettelse efterhånden erstattet af fængselsstraf.På baggrund af et kolossalt materiale og mange års studier af lokalhistorisk litteratur, erindringer, dagbogsoptegnelser, præsters henrettelsesbeskrivelser i kirkebøger, tingbøger m.m. har forfatteren kortlagt henrettelsens danmarkshistorie, med registrering af henved 2900 danske henrettelser. Dermed kommer læseren helt tæt på henrettelsernes hverdag og de forestillinger og traditioner, der knyttede sig til dem. Forfatteren præsenterer de dømte, deres baggrund og forbrydelsersamt den straffelovgivning og de retsinstanser, som de var underlagt. Han følger de dømte i arresten og på den sidste dag foran mestermanden på retterstedet, og endelig behandles også de spor, som de dramatiske begivenheder har sat sig isagn og talemåder mv.

Det er mange grusomme drapsmenn i Cold Mountain-fengselet, men når den nye fangen ankommer, er det ingen som har sett maken. Han har fått dødsstraff for voldtekt og drap av to unge jenter, og alle lurer på om John Coffey er djevelen selv eller noe enda verre.

Krise og krig kan få de værste sider frem i mennesker.1930’ernes armod kan være svær at forestille sig i dagens Danmark. Stor arbejdsløshed og barsk fattigdom var virkeligheden for mange. Danmarks rolle i Anden Verdenskrig fik senere stor betydning, særligt efter 1943, hvor flere begyndte at tvivle på en tysk sejr. Frygten for kommunisterne og deres styre spillede her en større rolle end man forestiller sig i dag. Den Spanske Borgerkrig og Finlandskrigen stod friske i folks erindring, og de ideologiske værdifronter var trukket hårdt op - med stor frygt og had til modparten.Få er tilbage, som har været vidner til - og levet med - 30’ernes krise og 40’ernes krig og efterkrigstid. Bent Hammeken er født i 1933, og giver os mulighed for at forstå lidt af hverdagslivet, som det så ud for blot et par generationer siden. I bogen ’Erindringsglimt’ deler han ud af sine minder fra en svunden tid, set med barnets øjne.

To be a poet is to create and march to one's own beat. To be a poet against the malignant rhythm of this godforsaken prison, is a revolutionary act governed by a love greater than the hate Pete is so often forced to bear. Pete is a poet. He is not beyond a prisoner's burden, but he refuses to allow it to define him. From a broken and bruised place, Pete's poems are butterflies that cannot be confined. This collection of 100 poems is an embodiment of his perseverance and a reflection of our struggle as a species. - Howard Guidry

"Open eyes" is my soul laid bare. I cannot remember a time that things didn't deeply affect me. Although, I could never put it into words. So I punched and kicked walls. I've sworn, yelled, bit at the air; and, at my lowest point, tried to end it all. Today, I look at the toll on my body, my scars (inner and outer), and marvel at how I ever ended up in such dark places... and more importantly, how I ever came back from them. I have been incarcerated in prison for the majority of my life under the worst sentence possible: Death! Men with this sentence are relegated to a building that is segregated and isolated from all other prisoners. Thus, the people you meet are also faced with the same uncertainty. Over the years I've lost so many friends, and am so troubled by it. I don't know if I can ever emotionally bond in this place again. I've often asked guys who've been here longer than me how they do it. I've gotten numerous answers. Some discovered God. Some discovered themselves through meditation, art, crafts and creative writing. I've tried various forms of religion before turning to Christianity; giving my life to Christ and giving it meaning. I also discovered poetry and creative writing (the language that gives sound to feeling). The fists of my emotions strike the walls inside of me (trapped and wanting out), finally finding a means of expression. "Open eyes" is me, raw and uncut; free and unchained.

I have now satisfied the words of the late United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in his opinion from Kansas v Marsh (2006) in which he stated, "a single case-not one-in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops." I now have a list of names to shout from the rooftops only wishing I could personally see the look on Justice Scaila's face as each one is read aloud and the United States criminal justice system tries to deny not just once, but over and over again that they have slaughtered the innocent.

I am sitting in a concrete cell, stranded on Texas death row, waiting to be murdered by the state. I was convicted of murdering a convenience store clerk while attempting to rob him, if you let the state tell it. But none of that matters now. I am here, captured by four walls that have defeated some of the strongest men. The fight is not only for my life but for the preservation of my sanity. Sitting on a steel makeshift bed, I look in retrospect at the long journey that has brought me to this situation.

Through examination of the death penalty in literature, Aaron Aquilina contests Heidegger's concept of 'being-towards-death' and proposes a new understanding of the political and philosophical subject.Dickens, Nabokov, Hugo, Sophocles and many others explore capital punishment in their works, from Antigone to Invitation to a Beheading. Using these varied case studies, Aquilina demonstrates how they all highlight two aspects of the experience. First, they uncover a particular state of being, or more precisely non-being, that comes with a death sentence, and, second, they reveal how this state exists beyond death row, as sovereignty and alterity are by no means confined to a prison cell.In contrast to Heidegger's being-towards-death, which individualizes the subject - only I can die my own death, supposedly - this book argues that, when condemned to death, the self and death collide, putting under erasure the category of subjectivity itself. Be it death row or not, when the supposed futurity of death is brought into the here and now, we encounter what Aquilina calls 'relational death'. Living on with death severs the subject's relation to itself, the other and political sociality as a whole, rendering the human less a named and recognizable 'being' than an anonymous 'living corpse', a human thing. In a sustained engagement with Blanchot, Levinas, Hegel, Agamben and Derrida, The Ontology of Death articulates a new theory of the subject, beyond political subjectivity defined by sovereignty and beyond the Heideggerian notion of ontological selfhood.

In Dershowitz on Killing: How the Law Decides Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die, Alan Dershowitz—New York Times bestselling author and one of America’s most respected legal scholars—examines the subjects of death, life, and the law.   Alan Dershowitz has been called “one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America” by Politico and “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights” by Newsweek. His legal career as a criminal defense lawyer has been deeply involved with death and life decisions.Dershowitz on Killing is a timely examination of issues and questions that are front and center in today’s society. Employing a philosophical, moral, religious, and cultural lens to the legal aspects surrounding death and life, Dershowitz elucidates the role of government to determine who shall live and who shall die in declaring wars, ordering executions, authorizing deadly force, permitting or denying abortions, providing or mandating vaccines, controlling climate change, allowing or refusing asylum for endangered migrants, and other life and death rulings. He notes that when the government decides these choices, it is asked to do so by first determining whether a “right” is involved, because rights trump mere interest, just as constitutional restrictions trump legislative and executive actions.   Dershowitz on Killing asserts that the rules governing death and life decisions should reflect the irreversibility of death. It is essential reading for anyone interested in or concerned about how these decisions are allocated among state and federal; executive, legislative, and judicial; private and governmental; religious and secular institutions—and how people in a democracy, through the power of the ballot, have the ultimate say in these critical decisions.

Anant Kumar Tripati does not use the traditional methods for writing law reviews in that, he substantially quote from treatises to emphasize his point.He focuses on the indigent being denied equality of arms so as to ensure they are imprisoned which violates ICCPR, principled sentencing discussing excessive sentences.He then examines consecutive sentences, discussing how it became possible for someone to be sentenced to life without parole for a nonviolent offense.Key Feature: Looks into how the US Prison systems imposes penalties and punishment on those who it prosecutes and shows why the system violates ICCPR in ALL 52 states. Denying the indigent equality of arms principled sentencing what is an excessive sentence consecutive sentences retroactivity Examines The Current Swing against Nonviolent Life without Parole Sentences. It evaluates the Case for an Eighth Amendment Categorical Ban of Life without the Possibility of Parole Sentence for Individuals Convicted of Nonviolent Offenses by Evaluating Objective Evidence of a National Consensus Argues effective application of cruel and unusual punishment in Arizona mandates all sentences be revisited by federal and state courts and that portioning punishment should be required in Arizona as the punishment is cruel and unusual and disproportionate under American and international standards.

Kaba's Sales Track Record: Kaba's We Do This 'til We Free Us was published in February 2021 by Haymarket, is a New York Times bestseller, and to date has sold 27,500 copies.Platform: Mariame Kaba has 141k twitter followers, tweets regularly, and is known as one of the leading prison and police abolitionists of our time; Andrea Ritchie has 14k twitter followers. A number of books will be published later this year that cover some of the same material from similarly respected and renowned abolitionists, including Ruth Wilson Gilmore's Change Everything (June 2021) and Derecka Purnell's Becoming Abolitionists (October 2021), but Kaba's platform far exceeds these authors. Both Kaba and Ricthie have essays in the forthcoming Abolition for the People (October 2021), the anthology edited by Colin Kaepernick.Credentials: Kaba is the recipient of the 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center's 2019 Visionary Voice Award, 2017 Peace Award by War Resisters League, a 2016 SOROS Justice Fellowship, and a 2016 AERA Ella Baker/Septima Clark Human Rights Award. She was listed in the 2018 Bitch 50 and Essence Magazine's 2018 #Woke100.Ritchie was a 2014 Senior Soros Justice Fellow, has testified before the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, the White House Council on Women and Girls, the Prison Rape Elimination Commission, and is a member of the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table, and was a founding member of the Steering Committee of New York City's Communities United for Police Reform.Blurbs/endorsements: Both authors' previous books boast blurbs from virtually every major Black intellectual or high-profile activist, including Michelle Alexander, Dorothy Roberts, Barbara Ransby, Robin D. G. Kelley, Rashad Robinson, Opal Tometi, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Charlene A. Carruthers, Beth Richie, and Mychal Denzel Smith. We expect a similar response to this book.Anniversary: The book will publish at approximately the two-year anniversary of George Floyd's death, and media retrospectives are expected.

The death penalty was Virginia's longest continuing tradition, dating back to 1608 when Capt. George Kendall was shot for treason. Since then, Virginia has executed 1,390 people, more than any other state. This number includes 94 women, 736 enslaved people, and at least 16 children whose ages were verified between 11 and 17."Closing the Slaughterhouse" exposes the corruption and systemic racial bias of Virginia's death penalty. Virginia used capital punishment as legal lynching, wielding it primarily against Blacks in crimes against whites. In addition to the significant number of executions, between 1976 and 2017, Virginia streamlined the legal process, killing people twice as fast as other states.On July 1, 2021, the former capital of the Confederacy became the first southern state to abolish the death penalty, led by a bipartisan coalition adopting a deliberate, bipartisan, and systematic approach. Abolition was the culmination of a tireless, decades-long effort to achieve this once unattainable goal, led by sometimes larger-than-life personalities, volunteers, non-profit organizations, and numerous others. "Closing the Slaughterhouse" traces all 413 years of Virginia's death penalty.