Academic literature on the topic 'Capital convictions'

Systematic reporting of data about wrongful conviction cases in the United States typically begins with 1989, the year of the country’s first post-conviction, DNA-based exonerations. Year-end 2018 thus concludes a full thirty years of information and marks a propitious time to take stock. In this article, we provide an overview of known exonerations, innocence advocacy, and wrongful conviction-related policy reforms in the U.S. during these three decades. First, we provide a brief history of wrongful convictions in the U.S. before turning to the modern era of innocence. We describe the key sources of data pertaining to wrongful convictions and exonerations. Then, using case data from the National Registry of Exonerations, we offer a detailed analysis of national and state-by-state trends in exonerations, including annual totals, DNA- and non-DNA-exonerations, and capital case exonerations. Our examination includes factors corresponding to sources of error, state death-penalty status, and regional differences. We then discuss innocence advocacy organizations, with a particular focus on Centurion Ministries and members of the Innocence Network. This is followed by an examination of state-by-state trends in innocence-related policy reforms on key issues as identified by the Innocence Project. The final section of the article discusses the many important matters we do not yet know about wrongful convictions and poses thoughts, questions, and ideas for continued scholarship focusing on miscarriages of justice. The Appendix provides state-by-state summaries of select information relating to wrongful convictions and innocence reforms.

Serious mental illness (SMI), wrongful convictions, and capital punishment is explored, as having a SMI may heighten an individual’s risk of being wrongfully convicted and consequently dealt a capital sentence. In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court banned the use of capital punishment for individuals with intellectual disabilities, ruling it unconstitutional, due to the diminished moral and intellectual capacity held by these individuals. Based on these Supreme Court findings, an argument is made that SMI is a compelling mitigating factor that ought to disqualify the pursuit of capital punishment. Due to the cognitive and volitional impairments associated with SMI, people with SMI are especially vulnerable to being wrongfully convicted of a crime and further wrongfully sentenced to death. Data to build this argument include that those with SMI are more likely to: 1) falsely confess; 2) struggle with assisting in their defense; 3) be perceived as an unreliable witness; 4) appear as though they lack remorse; and 5) face prejudices from judges and jurors; which all contribute to wrongful convictions. An explanation of these vulnerabilities are discussed in detail by examining 26 case vignettes (derived from the National Registry of Exonerations and other sources) where such individuals were wrongfully convicted due to SMI. Data from the National Registry of Exonerations is further analyzed, leading to discussion of the disproportionate co-occurrence of wrongful convictions that are stimulated by SMI. This paper concludes with an analysis of reforms and a discussion of how to enact safeguards to protect individuals with SMI.

The wrongful conviction of David Harold Eastman in the Australian Capital Territory represents one of Australia’s most recent and high-profile public failures of the criminal justice system and highlights the limits of the Australian legal system. Further, the Eastman case draws into question the use of inquiries into miscarriages of justice, particularly when an inquiry’s recommendations can be disregarded by governments (as it was in this instance). This article provides an overview of the Eastman case and critically evaluates how it sheds light on the use of inquiries as an avenue to investigate and correct wrongful convictions more broadly in Australia.

The present study examines the choice for sociology as a subfield in Swedish higher education. In the Bourdieusian tradition, the theory of social practices – with its relational concepts of field, habitus and capital – was the sociological lens for constructing the object and instruments for tackling it. The emphasis was given to the subjective dimension: how students rationalize and strategize the decision for studying sociology, as a course or a program, in an educational choice that entails a mobilization of resources acquired in the past for anticipating the future. For this, qualitative interviewing enabled the production of narratives of 21 students at different Swedish universities, exploring assumptions and presuppositions deployed in their choice. Results suggest a complex construction of the choice for sociology as a meaningful and suitable decision, producing varied degrees of conviction in the subfield and position-takings in relation to its practice and representations. Different positions can be outlined depending on how sociology is understood: as a capital for a subsequent entry to different fields, a distinction emerges in the mode of appropriation between ‘specialization’ of those investing in programs and ‘generalization’ of those taking freestanding courses combined with other investments; a difference indicating a different degree of belief in the discipline and its inculcation translated into the time devoted for it. When sociology becomes a field, a distinction refers to the practice of sociology between an ‘academically oriented sociology’ concerned with research and teaching, and a ‘socially oriented sociology’ concerned with an engagement and contribution to people outside the academic space. Since sociology is a scientific field with relatively weak autonomy to external forces, a plurality of hierarchies characterizes a stake for defining its ultimate and legitimate value, offering multiple satisfactions according to varied strategies and aspirations. However, this should not conceal the academic roots of a discipline precisely institutionalized at universities and that may influence a hierarchical relation between the social and the academic in the sociological field.

碩士
真理大學
法律學系碩士班
107
particular person at a particular point in time? Based on this conclusion, Is it sure that it is correct? Identification of criminal responsibility, Involving the existence of the right of justice for a particular person, therefore, Engaged in a judge, It is necessary to continuously study and explore the interaction between judicial psychiatric identification and psychiatry. Article 19 of the Criminal Law, Whether the suspects of mentally disabled persons have the relevant responsibilities for their ability to be responsible, Identification of criminal responsibility and mental disorders, Under the relationship of the two, Have a major impact on the power of people with mental disorders, How the court judges the results of the mental appraisal made by medical experts, With this, Psychiatry and judicial practice have achieved a balance. Judgment of responsibility, Taking into account the comprehensive judgment of physiological and psychological factors, The judgment of physiological reasons shall be determined by the practice in accordance with the results of medical expert identification. The psychological outcome must be judged by the judge himself. Based on procedural law, After a person with a mental disorder commits a crime, From the various stages of criminal justice in spiritual identification, Discuss according to the procedures of the prevention phase, the investigation phase, and the trial phase.

This chapter presents the third and final ideal type of radical right support I discerned: radical conservatism. The latter can mainly be found among socially well-to-do respondents, voting for the FN and PVV for ideological reasons. Contrary to the first two types, the electoral support of these interviewees is not fostered by feelings of relative deprivation, nor is it strongly shaped by socio-economic considerations or justified by moral claims. Instead, socio-cultural convictions dominate their discourse, notably denunciations of non-native out-groups (especially Muslims) who would lack the willingness to assimilate to the native majority culture. Finally, in contrast to respondents corresponding to other types of radical right support, these interviewees tend to describe themselves explicitly as conservatives and display a relatively high level of political sophistication, which, in turn, is related to their relatively high level of cultural and economic capital. The chapter also discusses an ideal-typical variant of this form of radical right support and highlights the differences between French and Dutch ‘radical conservatives’.

This chapter explains how executive clemency—the state governor’s power to reduce a death penalty to a lesser sentence—helped make capital punishment function in North Carolina. With mandatory death sentences for four serious crimes (murder, rape, burglary, and arson), judges had no choice but to pronounce a death penalty upon conviction. This left it up to the governor to decide whether or not the convicted person would be executed. Although this power was reserved for the governor, it was soon transferred to a parole board, which reviewed each death sentence and invited community comment. This process most benefitted teenagers and women. Perversely, more African Americans received commutations than whites because of the high rate of error in their trials.

In this chapter, former prisoners’ narratives are used to explore what it means to serve time in the “total institution” of prison, the prison experience and its connection to prisoner reentry, and what it means to be a convicted felon in society. Society expects prisoners reentering society to succeed by getting a job and not returning to a life of crime, but many fail, yet scholars rarely incorporate felons’ voices into the analysis to understand why. This chapter argues that there are many contradictions embedded in the reentry process, that there is little public support and social capital, and that participants find out that reentering society is harder than they anticipated. Relying on first-person accounts, the chapter exposes why it is so hard to reenter by exploring participants’ experience of living under the oppressive penal chain attached to a felony conviction. Readers are introduced to a unique perspective on serving time in prison and reentering society as a felon.

Chapter 7 presents the second form of radical right support that I discerned: contributionism. This is found primarily among respondents in the (lower) middle classes, who possess more economic than cultural capital. Having made their way outside the official education system through hard work, they see their relative success as the fruit of their own efforts. Accordingly, this ideal-type is not so much characterized by the belief that one receives too little, as was the case with ‘hard-done-bys’, but rather by the conviction that one gives too much; notably through tax money—collected by politicians and the state (up there). This, in turn, is believed to be redistributed unfairly to non-natives (‘below’, e.g. Arabs, asylum seekers, Greeks), who are believed to violate the self-reliant deservingness criteria of these voters, emphasizing their own ‘disciplined selves’ (Lamont, 2000) The chapter also highlights the differences between French and Dutch ‘contributionists’ and discusses and ideal-type variant of this form of radical right support.

This chapter focuses on the role of copper policies in the relations between the United States and Chile during the Frei administration, especially as they relate to the developmental efforts of the Christian Democratic project. During the Frei administration, the political debate on copper policies reached a climax. Since U.S. capitals were among the most significant actors in the story, the discussions around the issue of copper converged with the ideological visions of the United States and the Cold War held by the different Chilean political parties. As the Frei administration tried to introduce the most comprehensive and consistent reform around the structure of the property of the Gran Minería del Cobre, the forces in competition in the arena of Chilean politics stood by their ideological convictions, regarding both copper and the United States, in their opposition or grudging support for the policies proposed by the Christian Democratic government. Moreover, the U.S. government became deeply involved in the matter of copper in Chile, first by pressuring the Chilean government into rolling back a price increase in 1965 and then, mostly through the personal efforts of Ambassador Edward Korry, by mediating in the negotiation between the Frei administration and Anaconda on the nationalization of the U.S. company's largest mine, Chuquicamata, in 1969.

The 1960s witnessed the transformation of “film factories” from metaphor to lived reality. Lenfilm’s output rose once more to the levels its predecessor studios had reached in the 1920s, but the conditions of production were now far more complex and demanding, with staffs more than ten times the size. And while the 1960s was an era of optimistic emphasis on the Soviet film industry’s capacity to equal and surpass the world in technological terms, during the 1970s, the conviction took hold that the technological superiority of Western films was of direct relevance to audience share. Increasingly, ambitious filmmakers petitioned Goskino for permission to shoot on Kodak and to use Arriflex cameras; criticism of inferior Soviet film stock and GDR-produced film editing tables mounted, both across the USSR and at Lenfilm itself. Yet investment in studio infrastructure and technology remained at best haphazard, particularly at Lenfilm, which enjoyed less generous support from the center than Mosfilm, but also more limited resourcing than film studios in the capitals of Soviet republics. At the same time, Lenfilm had an unusually diverse, energetic, inventive, and loyal workforce, with corporate values that inspired manual workers and porters as well as “creative” personnel. Hierarchical at some levels, the work culture was egalitarian at others, and the frenetic process of scrambling to finish films in trying circumstances created strong bonds. The chapter explores the various conflicts and contradictions, but also rewards, that this situation generated.

Attention to safety and health are of ever-increasing priority to industrial organizations. Good Safety is demanded by stockholders, employees, and the community while increasing injury costs provide additional motivation for safety and health excellence. Safety has always been a strong corporate value of DuPont and a vital part of its culture. As a result, DuPont has become a benchmark in safety and health performance. Since 1990, DuPont has re-engineered itself to meet global competition and address future vision. In the new re-engineered organizational structures, DuPont has also had to re-engineer its safety management systems. A special Discovery Team was chartered by DuPont senior management to determine the “best practices’ for safety and health being used in DuPont best-performing sites. A summary of the findings is presented, and five of the practices are discussed. Excellence in safety and health management is more important today than ever. Public awareness, federal and state regulations, and enlightened management have resulted in a widespread conviction that all employees have the right to work in an environment that will not adversely affect their safety and health. In DuPont, we believe that excellence in safety and health is necessary to achieve global competitiveness, maintain employee loyalty, and be an accepted member of the communities in which we make, handle, use, and transport products. Safety can also be the “catalyst” to achieving excellence in other important business parameters. The organizational and communication skills developed by management, individuals, and teams in safety can be directly applied to other company initiatives. As we look into the 21st Century, we must also recognize that new organizational structures (flatter with empowered teams) will require new safety management techniques and systems in order to maintain continuous improvement in safety performance. Injury costs, which have risen dramatically in the past twenty years, provide another incentive for safety and health excellence. Shown in the Figure 1, injury costs have increased even after correcting for inflation. Many companies have found these costs to be an “invisible drain” on earnings and profitability. In some organizations, significant initiatives have been launched to better manage the workers’ compensation systems. We have found that the ultimate solution is to prevent injuries and incidents before they occur. A globally-respected company, DuPont is regarded as a well-managed, extremely ethical firm that is the benchmark in industrial safety performance. Like many other companies, DuPont has re-engineered itself and downsized its operations since 1985. Through these changes, we have maintained dedication to our principles and developed new techniques to manage in these organizational environments. As a diversified company, our operations involve chemical process facilities, production line operations, field activities, and sales and distribution of materials. Our customer base is almost entirely industrial and yet we still maintain a high level of consumer awareness and positive perception. The DuPont concern for safety dates back to the early 1800s and the first days of the company. In 1802 E.I. DuPont, a Frenchman, began manufacturing quality grade explosives to fill America’s growing need to build roads, clear fields, increase mining output, and protect its recently won independence. Because explosives production is such a hazardous industry, DuPont recognized and accepted the need for an effective safety effort. The building walls of the first powder mill near Wilmington, Delaware, were built three stones thick on three sides. The back remained open to the Brandywine River to direct any explosive forces away from other buildings and employees. To set the safety example, DuPont also built his home and the homes of his managers next to the powder yard. An effective safety program was a necessity. It represented the first defense against instant corporate liquidation. Safety needs more than a well-designed plant, however. In 1811, work rules were posted in the mill to guide employee work habits. Though not nearly as sophisticated as the safety standards of today, they did introduce an important basic concept — that safety must be a line management responsibility. Later, DuPont introduced an employee health program and hired a company doctor. An early step taken in 1912 was the keeping of safety statistics, approximately 60 years before the federal requirement to do so. We had a visible measure of our safety performance and were determined that we were going to improve it. When the nation entered World War I, the DuPont Company supplied 40 percent of the explosives used by the Allied Forces, more than 1.5 billion pounds. To accomplish this task, over 30,000 new employees were hired and trained to build and operate many plants. Among these facilities was the largest smokeless powder plant the world had ever seen. The new plant was producing granulated powder in a record 116 days after ground breaking. The trends on the safety performance chart reflect the problems that a large new work force can pose until the employees fully accept the company’s safety philosophy. The first arrow reflects the World War I scale-up, and the second arrow represents rapid diversification into new businesses during the 1920s. These instances of significant deterioration in safety performance reinforced DuPont’s commitment to reduce the unsafe acts that were causing 96 percent of our injuries. Only 4 percent of injuries result from unsafe conditions or equipment — the remainder result from the unsafe acts of people. This is an important concept if we are to focus our attention on reducing injuries and incidents within the work environment. World War II brought on a similar set of demands. The story was similar to World War I but the numbers were even more astonishing: one billion dollars in capital expenditures, 54 new plants, 75,000 additional employees, and 4.5 billion pounds of explosives produced — 20 percent of the volume used by the Allied Forces. Yet, the performance during the war years showed no significant deviation from the pre-war years. In 1941, the DuPont Company was 10 times safer than all industry and 9 times safer than the Chemical Industry. Management and the line organization were finally working as they should to control the real causes of injuries. Today, DuPont is about 50 times safer than US industrial safety performance averages. Comparing performance to other industries, it is interesting to note that seemingly “hazard-free” industries seem to have extraordinarily high injury rates. This is because, as DuPont has found out, performance is a function of injury prevention and safety management systems, not hazard exposure. Our success in safety results from a sound safety management philosophy. Each of the 125 DuPont facilities is responsible for its own safety program, progress, and performance. However, management at each of these facilities approaches safety from the same fundamental and sound philosophy. This philosophy can be expressed in eleven straightforward principles. The first principle is that all injuries can be prevented. That statement may seem a bit optimistic. In fact, we believe that this is a realistic goal and not just a theoretical objective. Our safety performance proves that the objective is achievable. We have plants with over 2,000 employees that have operated for over 10 years without a lost time injury. As injuries and incidents are investigated, we can always identify actions that could have prevented that incident. If we manage safety in a proactive — rather than reactive — manner, we will eliminate injuries by reducing the acts and conditions that cause them. The second principle is that management, which includes all levels through first-line supervisors, is responsible and accountable for preventing injuries. Only when senior management exerts sustained and consistent leadership in establishing safety goals, demanding accountability for safety performance and providing the necessary resources, can a safety program be effective in an industrial environment. The third principle states that, while recognizing management responsibility, it takes the combined energy of the entire organization to reach sustained, continuous improvement in safety and health performance. Creating an environment in which employees feel ownership for the safety effort and make significant contributions is an essential task for management, and one that needs deliberate and ongoing attention. The fourth principle is a corollary to the first principle that all injuries are preventable. It holds that all operating exposures that may result in injuries or illnesses can be controlled. No matter what the exposure, an effective safeguard can be provided. It is preferable, of course, to eliminate sources of danger, but when this is not reasonable or practical, supervision must specify measures such as special training, safety devices, and protective clothing. Our fifth safety principle states that safety is a condition of employment. Conscientious assumption of safety responsibility is required from all employees from their first day on the job. Each employee must be convinced that he or she has a responsibility for working safely. The sixth safety principle: Employees must be trained to work safely. We have found that an awareness for safety does not come naturally and that people have to be trained to work safely. With effective training programs to teach, motivate, and sustain safety knowledge, all injuries and illnesses can be eliminated. Our seventh principle holds that management must audit performance on the workplace to assess safety program success. Comprehensive inspections of both facilities and programs not only confirm their effectiveness in achieving the desired performance, but also detect specific problems and help to identify weaknesses in the safety effort. The Company’s eighth principle states that all deficiencies must be corrected promptly. Without prompt action, risk of injuries will increase and, even more important, the credibility of management’s safety efforts will suffer. Our ninth principle is a statement that off-the-job safety is an important part of the overall safety effort. We do not expect nor want employees to “turn safety on” as they come to work and “turn it off” when they go home. The company safety culture truly becomes of the individual employee’s way of thinking. The tenth principle recognizes that it’s good business to prevent injuries. Injuries cost money. However, hidden or indirect costs usually exceed the direct cost. Our last principle is the most important. Safety must be integrated as core business and personal value. There are two reasons for this. First, we’ve learned from almost 200 years of experience that 96 percent of safety incidents are directly caused by the action of people, not by faulty equipment or inadequate safety standards. But conversely, it is our people who provide the solutions to our safety problems. They are the one essential ingredient in the recipe for a safe workplace. Intelligent, trained, and motivated employees are any company’s greatest resource. Our success in safety depends upon the men and women in our plants following procedures, participating actively in training, and identifying and alerting each other and management to potential hazards. By demonstrating a real concern for each employee, management helps establish a mutual respect, and the foundation is laid for a solid safety program. This, of course, is also the foundation for good employee relations. An important lesson learned in DuPont is that the majority of injuries are caused by unsafe acts and at-risk behaviors rather than unsafe equipment or conditions. In fact, in several DuPont studies it was estimated that 96 percent of injuries are caused by unsafe acts. This was particularly revealing when considering safety audits — if audits were only focused on conditions, at best we could only prevent four percent of our injuries. By establishing management systems for safety auditing that focus on people, including audit training, techniques, and plans, all incidents are preventable. Of course, employee contribution and involvement in auditing leads to sustainability through stakeholdership in the system. Management safety audits help to make manage the “behavioral balance.” Every job and task performed at a site can do be done at-risk or safely. The essence of a good safety system ensures that safe behavior is the accepted norm amongst employees, and that it is the expected and respected way of doing things. Shifting employees norms contributes mightily to changing culture. The management safety audit provides a way to quantify these norms. DuPont safety performance has continued to improve since we began keeping records in 1911 until about 1990. In the 1990–1994 time frame, performance deteriorated as shown in the chart that follows: This increase in injuries caused great concern to senior DuPont management as well as employees. It occurred while the corporation was undergoing changes in organization. In order to sustain our technological, competitive, and business leadership positions, DuPont began re-engineering itself beginning in about 1990. New streamlined organizational structures and collaborative work processes eliminated many positions and levels of management and supervision. The total employment of the company was reduced about 25 percent during these four years. In our traditional hierarchical organization structures, every level of supervision and management knew exactly what they were expected to do with safety, and all had important roles. As many of these levels were eliminated, new systems needed to be identified for these new organizations. In early 1995, Edgar S. Woolard, DuPont Chairman, chartered a Corporate Discovery Team to look for processes that will put DuPont on a consistent path toward a goal of zero injuries and occupational illnesses. The cross-functional team used a mode of “discovery through learning” from as many DuPont employees and sites around the world. The Discovery Team fostered the rapid sharing and leveraging of “best practices” and innovative approaches being pursued at DuPont’s plants, field sites, laboratories, and office locations. In short, the team examined the company’s current state, described the future state, identified barriers between the two, and recommended key ways to overcome these barriers. After reporting back to executive management in April, 1995, the Discovery Team was realigned to help organizations implement their recommendations. The Discovery Team reconfirmed key values in DuPont — in short, that all injuries, incidents, and occupational illnesses are preventable and that safety is a source of competitive advantage. As such, the steps taken to improve safety performance also improve overall competitiveness. Senior management made this belief clear: “We will strengthen our business by making safety excellence an integral part of all business activities.” One of the key findings of the Discovery Team was the identification of the best practices used within the company, which are listed below: ▪ Felt Leadership – Management Commitment ▪ Business Integration ▪ Responsibility and Accountability ▪ Individual/Team Involvement and Influence ▪ Contractor Safety ▪ Metrics and Measurements ▪ Communications ▪ Rewards and Recognition ▪ Caring Interdependent Culture; Team-Based Work Process and Systems ▪ Performance Standards and Operating Discipline ▪ Training/Capability ▪ Technology ▪ Safety and Health Resources ▪ Management and Team Audits ▪ Deviation Investigation ▪ Risk Management and Emergency Response ▪ Process Safety ▪ Off-the-Job Safety and Health Education Attention to each of these best practices is essential to achieve sustained improvements in safety and health. The Discovery Implementation in conjunction with DuPont Safety and Environmental Management Services has developed a Safety Self-Assessment around these systems. In this presentation, we will discuss a few of these practices and learn what they mean. Paper published with permission.