Death by Design Capital Punishment As a Social Psychological System

by Haney, Craig

• ISBN13: 9780195182408
• ISBN10: 0195182405
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-08-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

How can otherwise normal, moral persons - as citizens, voters, and jurors - participate in a process that is designed to take the life of another? In DEATH BY DESIGN, research psychologist Craig Haney argues that capital punishment, and particularly the sequence of events that lead to deathsentencing itself, is maintained through a complex and elaborate social psychological system that distances and disengages us from the true nature of the task. Relying heavily on his own research and that of other social scientists, Haney suggests that these social psychological forces enablepersons to engage in behavior from which many of them otherwise would refrain. However, by facilitating death sentencing in these ways, this inter-related set of social psychological forces also undermines the reliability and authenticity of the process, and compromises the fairness of its outcomes.Because these social psychological forces are systemic in nature - built into the very system of death sentencing itself - Haney concludes by suggesting a number of inter-locking reforms, derived directly from empirical research on capital punishment, that are needed to increase the fairness andreliability of the process. The historic and ongoing public debate over the death penalty takes place not only in courtrooms, but also in classrooms, offices, and living rooms. This timely book offers stimulating insights into capital punishment for professionals and students working in psychology, law, criminology,sociology, and cultural area studies. As capital punishment receives continued attention in the media, it is also a necessary and provocative guide that empowers all readers to come to their own conclusions about the death penalty.

Author Biography

Craig Haney is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has been conducting research on capital punishment for over 25 years.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword	vii
1 Blinded by the Death Penalty: The Supreme Court and the Social Realities of Capital Punishment	3	(24)
2 Frameworks of Misunderstanding: Capital Punishment and the American Media	27	(18)
3 Constructing Capital Crimes and Defendants: Death Penalty Case-Specific Biases and Their Effects	45	(22)
4 The Fragile Consensus: Public Opinion and Death Penalty Policy	67	(26)
5 A Tribunal Organized to Convict and Execute? On the Nature of Jury Selection in Capital Cases	93	(22)
6 Preparing for the Death Penalty in Advance of Trial: Process Effects in Death-Qualifying Capital Juries	115	(26)
7 Structural Aggravation: Moral Disengagement in the Capital Trial Process	141	(22)
8 Misguided Discretion: Instructional Incomprehension in the System of Death Sentencing	163	(26)
9 Condemning the Other: Race, Mitigation, and the "Empathic Divide"	189	(22)
10 No Longer Tinkering With the Machinery of Death: Proposals for Systemic Reform	211	(30)
Concluding Thoughts: Death Is Different	241	(6)
Notes	247	(76)
Index	323