Description
Book SynopsisArguing 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.
Trade Review"Sarat's analysis of the controversies surrounding capital punishment is both broad and deep."--Booklist "Sarat makes a persuasive argument here for the abolition of the death penalty."--Library Journal "Engaging and accessible ... this impassioned work raises a number of provocative questions about America's love affair with the death penalty."--Publisher's Weekly "Challenges readers to consider why the U.S. continues to execute inmates when most other Western democracies have abandoned the practice. [Sarat asks] readers to examine the role every citizen plays in carrying out the death penalty, even if he or she never enters a courtroom."--Steve Mills, Chicago Tribune "At the heart of When the State Kills is the notion that there is no way to square capital punishment with democratic values... [A] powerful and eloquent case for the abolition of the death penalty."--William Vance Trollinger, Christian Century "The strength of the book lies in the attention the author gives to the connections between capital punishment and broader cultural and political issues... As a result, this is one of the most original and lively books on capital punishment in a long time."--John Langan, America "A powerful, penetrating account of the death penalty process and its cultural concomitants."--David Garland, Punishment and Society "By introducing a popular audience to the core insights of cultural/legal analysis and then showing why those insights are relevant to public policy, Sarat has helped to advance both an interdisciplinary academic field and an important societal debate. And that is high praise indeed."--Paul Berman, Columbia Law Review "A fresh and insightful contribution to the discourse on capital punishment."--Harvard Law Review "A volume that is strikingly successful in fulfilling its author's pledge to disclose 'new narrative possibilities in the conversation about state killing.'"--Timothy Kaufman Osborn, Yale Law Journal "When the State Kills remains appropriate for the 21st Century, perhaps now more than ever."--David S. Mann, Law and Politics Book Review "[A] passionate and thoughtful book."--Andrew Norris, American Political Science Review "Valuable for its creative, yet hard-headed effort to confront the meaning of the death penalty in American culture, this book attends to capitol punishment as killing and citizens as killers... Aside from its compelling contribution to study of the death penalty, this timely book is splendid cultural critique and commentary."--Ethics
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Chapter 1 Introduction: "If Timothy McVeigh Doesn't Deserve to Die, Who Does?" 3 PART ONE State Killing and the Politic of Vengeance 31 Chapter 2 The Return of Revenge: Hearing the Voice of the Victim in Capital Trials 33 Chapter 3 Killing Me Softly: Capital Punishment and the Technologies for Taking Life 60 PART TWO State Killing in the Legal Proce 85 Chapter 4 Capital Trials and the Ordinary World of State Killing 87 Chapter 5 The Role of the Jury in the Killing State 126 Chapter 6 Narrative Strategy and Death Penalty Advocacy: Attempting to Save the Condemned 158 PART THREE The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment 185 Chapter 7 To See or Not To See: On Televising Executions 187 Chapter 8 State Killing in Popular Culture: Responsibility and Representation in Dead Man Walking, Last Dance, and The Green Mile 209 Chapter 9 Conclusion: Toward New Abolitionism 246 Notes 261 Index 315
