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Koenig & Rustad on Murphy on the Death Penalty

By Lawrence Solum

Thomas H. Koenig (Northeastern University) & Michael L. Rustad (Suffolk University Law School) have posted Deciding Whether the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Professors Thomas H. Koenig & Michael L. Rustad?s review essay highlights the importance of Russell Murphy?s recent book, Voices of the Death Penalty Debate: A Citizen?s Guide to Capital Punishment for social science classes as well as the legal academy. This review essay contends that Murphy?s narrative approach to death penalty arguments is pedagogically the most sound approach to thinking about the death penalty.

Lawyers, journalists, and informed members of the public need this book because it dispassionately examines the arguments for and against the death penalty in an innovative format: through witness testimony. The title of this book reflects Murphy?s sincere attempt to present the arguments and the witnesses? testimony in a fair and impartial manner that is in the best tradition of field studies in sociology. The expert and participant observation witnesses included family members of murder victims, correctional officials, leading law professors and social scientists, academics, criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors, religious leaders, law reformers police officers, exonerated death row inmates, jurists, and celebrities such as Bianca Jagger, ex-wife of Rolling Stone legend, Mick Jagger. This is a ?deliberately different? book in that it presents multiple perspectives through the narratives of major participants in the death penalty debates: criminologists, legal academics, social scientists, religious leaders, family members of victims, and former death row inmates vindicated by later discovered evidence. The review essay concludes that this book is a significant contribution to the social science literature in that it enables students, scholars, and policymakers to consider diverse arguments in a format that is fair and balanced.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on September 09, 2010 (boomark / email).