Joel Harford

ENG 123
Prof. Fisher
Fall 2015
Annotated Bibliography
Corlett, Angelo J. "Responsibility and Punishment." Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy.
4th Ed. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2013. Webcat. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.

Corlett goes into great detail about each major objection to Capital Punishment. He lists
the objections to capital punishment as the following: Unfairness Objection, Economic,
Deterrence, Rehabilitation, forgiveness, and the civilized society. He explains each of
these objections and gives replies to how each may be corrected while still using the
death penalty. With each of these arguments Corlett still states The many reasons against
capital punishment are inadequate to render problematic capital punishment
suspensionism (190). He still holds that for those deserving of death, the punishment
must be met.

This book helps to show all the complaints against the death penalty as well as the
counter arguments for each. Corlett defends capital punishment very well and counters a
few of my other sources arguments. This article will be a useful source of counterargument

Davis, Michael. "The Death Penalty, Civilization, and Inhumanness." Social Theory & Practice.
16.2 (1990): 245-259. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.

Davis makes a claim that the death penalty should be abolished on the terms that it is an
inhumane form of punishment. He relies heavily on Jeffrey Reimans critique of on
earlier article of Davis. Davis uses examples from Reimans text and counters them with
his dismissal due to lack of facts by Reiman. Both writers are for the abolishment of the
death penalty yet they differ on specific of why it should be. Davis uses this article to
further strengthen his stance that due to the inhumanness of the death penalty it should be
abolished even if the guilty party deserves death.

This article is filled with mostly counter arguments to referred articles. It is useful in the
way that it explains logically how the death penalty is seen as inhumane. This can be used
as an explanation of differing ideas on the humaneness of the death penalty, however the
referred to articles should also be used for consistency and comparability.

Denno, Deborah W. "Lethal injection Chaos Post-Baze." Georgetown Law Journal 102.5 (2014):
1331-1382. Business Source Premier. Web. 7 Nov. 2015.

This Article is written mostly about the Supreme Court case Baze v. Rees. This case
upheld the constitutional use of lethal injection used for capital punishment. Denno takes
time looking at dissenting court opinions about the case as well as worries about what the
result of the case will bring. The point of her article is to show that Until death-penalty
states are willing to focus more on solutions than secrecy, lethal injection as a method of
execution will remain mired in an endless cycle of difficulty and disorder (1382).

This article is good at pointing out flaws in the way that death-penalty states handle the
chemical problems with lethal injection. It explains the shortage of the Anesthesia sodium
thiopental and the tortuous effects if the drug does not work. This article points out the
various flaws with lethal injection and is great to use for an argument against capital
punishment and lethal injection specifically.

Hodgkinson, Peter, ed. Capital Punishment: New Perspectives. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing
Company, 2013. Webcat. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.

This book is a broad look at capital punishment. It ranges from topics like child
executions in Islamic countries, to capital punishment policies between countries. I will
focus on the topics about abolishment. This book explains the issues facing abolishment
of executions and the troubles they face. This can be used in my report during the
discussion of the problems with capital punishment. The book is good at looking at
various issues with capital punishment. The various sections use pathos heavily when
looking at victims of the death penalty.

The section I want to focus on is about abolition and the Christian faith. This section is
important because it looks at why Christians should be for abolition of the death penalty.
The structure of the section looks at how abolitionists focus on people who agree with
them already, and less on people whom they need to convince. It shows how to convince
Christians to support abolition. I can mirror their use of rhetoric as well as site specific

instances such as, the story at the centre of the faith is an unjust sentence of death driven
by an over-zealous prosecutor (Hodgkinson 89).

Howe, Scott W. "Can California Save Its Death Sentences? Will Californians Save the Expense?"
Cardozo Law Review 33.4 (2012): 1451-1516. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Nov.
2015.

This article looks at the issues facing California regarding the death penalty. Howe
explains, A death sentence in California is, in most cases, a very expensive form of life
imprisonment without parole (1452). He explains how California is in litigation
determining if lethal injection fits within the 8th amendment regarding cruel and unusual
punishment. This long-term debate, in whether the state should or should not use lethal
injection, has led to lifelong placement on death row.

This article is how I can make my report locatable, as well as the amount of logos this
article contains. The economic toll the California lethal injection debate has brought has
led many to prefer abolishment even if they support death penalty. Due to economic
troubles in California, now is a great time to push for either the abolishment of the death
penalty, or the use of lethal injections. I will focus more on the latter.

Langford, Catherine L. "Tinkering With the Machinery of Death: The Body-As-Gauge in

Discourses about Capital Punishment." Argumentation & Advocacy. 51.3 (2015): 153170. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 7 November 2015.

Langford bases her entire article on the Body-As-Gauge metaphor, which Langford
describes as, Executions use the body-as-gauge to assess the pain, if any, experienced
during execution (155). The purpose of body-as-gauge is to determine if the method of
execution is free from the 8th amendments clause about cruel and unusual punishment.

Langford looks at different arguments on whether or not those given lethal injection feel
pain. She states the way a government determines if a punishment is consistent and
humane is if it is, objective, replicable, precise and measurable (164). This article can
be used by me to make an argument whether or not lethal injection fits the criteria to be
humane. This articles definition of humane can be used in conjunction with the other
articles and their claims to draw a line of what is an acceptable form of execution.

Murphy, Jeffrie G. "Christianity and Criminal Punishment." Punishment & Society. 5.3 (2003):
261-278. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.

Murphy looks at capital punishment from the view of a Christian, and lays out arguments
why Christians would be against the death penalty. He frequently cites Immanuel Kant,
although he acknowledges Kants faith may have been used as ways to keep the censor
off his back and to avoid offending his faithful manservant (262). He looks at issues of
love and punishment to determine if using death penalty to stop evil in turn makes the
punisher evil.

He looks at scripture and how forgiveness is a key aspect in the bible. He looks at how
forgiveness in Christianity can influence decisions regarding capital punishment. This can
be used as a pathos argument against forms of execution.

Steiker, Carol S. "Mass Incarceration: Causes, Consequences, and Exit Strategies." Ohio State
Journal of Criminal Law. 9.1 (2011): 1-6. Web. 2 Nov 2015.

Steiker writes an introduction to a symposium on mass incarceration. Steiker starts off the
symposium very well by bringing up many of the issues involving mass incarceration.
She brings up stats on the huge increase of mass incarceration. She explains the base
arguments of the writers in the symposium, as well as adds her take to many of them. It is
a short introduction but it does well to give an idea of the other sections.

Why this intro would be important, considering how short it is, is that Steiker makes a
good argument on why mass incarceration is an important issue that Americans should be
aware, and involved. Her statement is as follows, I could think of no more urgent issue
relating to American criminal justice (1). She makes it clear above all other issues
regarding law and justice, mass incarceration is key among them.

Steiker, Carol S. and Jordan M. Steiker. "The Death Penalty and Mass Incarceration:
Convergences and Divergences." American Journal of Criminal Law. 14.2 (2004): 189207. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.

Steikers books looks at both mass incarceration and capital punishment in an objective
view to look at how both issues are similar and how they differ. She starts by talking
about how policies in the 60s and 70s attributed to a boom in incarceration and led to
wide use of the death penalty as a punishment. Steiker and Steiker States Several polices
central to the rise of mass incarceration have helped to promote the retention of capital
punishment at the abstract level of theory and discourse (194). She looks at the way
capital and non-capital punishments are treated by the courts. Divergences she mentions
are that capital punishment are treated by the Supreme Court as severe and needing
regulation while non-capital punishments are seen as less important to regulate.

Steikers explanation of the death is different policy will be an invaluable piece to a

research paper on capital punishment. It shows how that policy leads to more regulation
on death penalty, possibly increasing its use as a punishment as an effect. She speaks
about how the regulation of death penalty, and attempting to limit it as a punishment
increased the use of life without parole. This article is good for a fact building portion of
the research paper.

Zivot, Joel B. "The Absence of Cruelty is Not the Presence of Humanness: Physicians and the
Death Penalty in the United States." Philosophy, Ethics & Humanities in Medicine 7.1
(2012): 1-4. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Nov 2015.

Zivot does a great job making an argument that physicians and anesthesiologist should be
removed from the debate of whether or not lethal injection is humane. He first begins by

talking about how the lack of cruelty does not constitute humanness. Zivot greatly
describes how the court looks at the regulation of capital punishment, the court will
evaluate the method of execution against the current cruelty standard only, not the
rightness or wrongness of the death penalty (2). This shows how difficult it would truly
be to abolish executions. The courts wont remove the death penalty as a punishment;
they will only remove methods by which we execute.

This article both aids and hinders the argument for Executions. Zivot explains that while
a method may not be cruel, it needs to be determined to be humane. However he states,
No method exists to rank order humane tasks yet some method of humane triage would
be required (3). With his other argument that physicians should be removed from the
execution process on the basis there is no physician-patient relationship involved. He
says a physician needs to determine if a process is human at the same time be removed
from the argument creates a conundrum. This article greatly shows the conflicts that this
issue faces, and will be useful to show the moral problems physicians also face.