Bøger af Austin Sarat

Interpreting The Americans through a socially charged lens, this special issue offers a compelling insight into the legal and cultural undertones of family dynamics, as well as those at the heart of conservative American politics.

"From the beginning of the Republic, this country has struggled to reconcile its use of capital punishment with the Constitution's prohibition of cruel punishment. Death penalty proponents argue both that it is justifiable as a response to particularly heinous crimes, and that it serves to deter people from committing them in the future. However, since the earliest executions, abolitionists have fought against this state-sanctioned killing, arguing, among other things, that the methods of execution have frequently been just as gruesome as the crimes meriting their use execution. Lethal injection was first introduced in order to quell such objections, but, as Austin Sarat shows in this brief history, its supporters' commitment to painless and humane death has never been certain. This book tells the story of lethal injection's earliest iterations in the United States, starting with New York state's rejection of that execution method almost a century and half ago. Sarat recounts lethal injection's return in the late 1970s, and offers novel and insightful scrutiny of the new drug protocols that went into effect between 2010 and 2020. Drawing on rare data, he makes the case that lethal injections during this time only became more unreliable, inefficient, and more frequently botched. Beyond his stirring narrative history, Sarat mounts a comprehensive condemnation of the state-level maneuvering in response to such mishaps, whereby death penalty states adopted secrecy statutes and adjusted their execution protocols to make it harder to identify and observe lethal injection's flaws. What was once touted as America's most humane execution method is now its most unreliable one. What was once a model of efficiency in the grim business of state killing, is now marked by mayhem. The book concludes by critically examining the place of lethal injection, and the death penalty writ large, today"--

"Forgiveness, Mercy, and Clemency is a welcome addition to our understanding of the political and legal world. The book is unique insofar as it addresses many of the nuances associated with a topic that, for many, is isolated to the action taken by Governor Ryan to empty Illinois's death row in January 2003."--Beau Breslin, Skidmore College"Forgiveness, Mercy, and Clemency is a welcome addition to our understanding of the political and legal world. The book is unique insofar as it addresses many of the nuances associated with a topic that, for many, is isolated to the action taken by Governor Ryan to empty Illinois's death row in January 2003." --Beau Breslin, Skidmore College

On January 11, 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan--a Republican on record as saying that "e;some crimes are so horrendous . . . that society has a right to demand the ultimate penalty"e;--commuted the capital sentences of all 167 prisoners on his state's death row. Critics demonized Ryan. For opponents of capital punishment, however, Ryan became an instant hero whose decision was seen as a signal moment in the "e;new abolitionist"e; politics to end killing by the state. In this compelling and timely work, Austin Sarat provides the first book-length work on executive clemency. He turns our focus from questions of guilt and innocence to the very meaning of mercy. Starting from Ryan's controversial decision, Mercy on Trial uses the lens of executive clemency in capital cases to discuss the fraught condition of mercy in American political life. Most pointedly, Sarat argues that mercy itself is on trial. Although it has always had a problematic position as a form of "e;lawful lawlessness,"e; it has come under much more intense popular pressure and criticism in recent decades. This has yielded a radical decline in the use of the power of chief executives to stop executions. From the history of capital clemency in the twentieth century to surrounding legal controversies and philosophical debates about when (if ever) mercy should be extended, Sarat examines the issue comprehensively. In the end, he acknowledges the risks associated with mercy--but, he argues, those risks are worth taking.

Bringing together the work of scholars in anthropology, law, literary studies, philosophy, and political theory, this book includes essays that show how state and private bureaucracies play crucial roles in fashioning forms of responsibility, which they then enjoin on populations.

Discusses why the US legal system makes so many mistakes

Uncovers the ways that race influences capital punishment, and attempts to situate the linkage between race and the death penalty in the history of America, in particular the history of lynching. This book looks at how the death penalty gives meaning to race, as well as why the racialization of the death penalty is uniquely American.

Presenting a diverse array of articles by an interdisciplinary group of scholars, this work covers social science disciplines and law. Some articles in this issue examine the interactions of law and "vulnerable" populations. Other articles focus on indigenous groups and particular legal controversies in which they are involved.

Arguing that the capital punishment must be stopped, this book exposes us to the realities of state killing and examines its foundations in ideas about revenge and retribution. It takes us inside the courtroom of a capital trial, and presents interviews with jurors and lawyers who make decisions about life and death.