Final Judgments
The Death Penalty in American Law and Culture

This book examines the meaning and significance of finality in capital cases.

Austin Sarat (Edited by)

9781316609019, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 December 2018

191 pages
23 x 15.2 x 1.1 cm, 0.28 kg

Final Judgments: The Death Penalty in American Law and Culture explores the significance and meaning of finality in capital cases. Questions addressed in this book include: how are concerns about finality reflected in the motivations and behavior of participants in the death penalty system? How does an awareness of finality shape the experience of the death penalty for those condemned to die as well as for capital punishment's public audience? What is the meaning of time in capital cases? What are the relative weights according to finality versus the need for error correction in legal and political debates? And, how does the meaning of finality differ in capital and non-capital (LWOP) cases? Each chapter examines the idea of finality as a legal, political, and cultural fact. Final Judgments deploys various theories and perspectives to explore the death penalty's finality.

Introduction: starting to think about finality in capital cases Austin Sarat
1. Finality and the capital/non-capital punishment divide Carissa Byrne Hessick
2. Following finality: why capital punishment is collapsing under its own weight Corinna Barrett Lain
3. The time it takes to die and the 'death' of the death penalty: untimely meditations on the end of capital punishment in the United States Jennifer L. Culbert
4. Grand finality: post-conviction prosecutors and capital punishment Daniel S. Medwed
5. Existential finality: dark empathy, retribution, and the decline of capital punishment in the United States Daniel LaChance
Afterword: death and the state Jenny Carroll.

Subject Areas: Criminal justice law [LNFB], Criminal law & procedure [LNF], Law & society [LAQ], Law [L]