A01=Sarah Beth Kaufman
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aggravating circumstances
american justice
Author_Sarah Beth Kaufman
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capital defendants
capital jurors
capital punishment
capital sentencing
capital trials
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JKV
COP=United States
court cases
courtrooms
criminal
criminal justice
criminal punishment
criminology
death penalty
death row
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ethics
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homicide
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Language_English
legal system
mercy
morality
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politics
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psychological experts
race
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sentencing
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Product details
- ISBN 9780520344389
- Weight: 318g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 19 May 2020
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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As the death penalty clings to life in many states and dies off in others, this first-of-its-kind ethnography takes readers inside capital trials across the United States. Sarah Beth Kaufman draws on years of ethnographic and documentary research, including hundreds of hours of courtroom observation in seven states, interviews with participants, and analyses of newspaper coverage to reveal how the American justice system decides who deserves the most extreme punishment. The “super due process” accorded capital sentencing by the United States Supreme Court is the system’s best attempt at individuated sentencing. Resources not seen in most other parts of the criminal justice system, such as jurors and psychological experts, are required in capital trials, yet even these cannot create the conditions of morality or justice. Kaufman demonstrates that capital trials ultimately depend on performance and politics, resulting in the enactment of deep biases and utter capriciousness. American Roulette contends that the liberal, democratic ideals of criminal punishment cannot be enacted in the current criminal justice system, even under the most controlled circumstances.
Sarah Beth Kaufman is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.
