Vol. 14 No. 8 (August 2004), pp.603-605

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: STRATEGIES FOR ABOLITION, by Peter Hodgkinson and William A. Schabas (eds.).  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.  388pp.  Hardcover £50.00 / $75.00.  ISBN: 0-521-81590-8.

Reviewed by Conrad P. Rutkowski, Co-director, Institute for Applied Phenomenology, Spring Valley, New York and Spruce Head Island, Maine. E-mail: abmaphd@aol.com.

The title of the book is a bit misleading.  It is much more than the identification of abolition strategies.  It may be that the subject matter and topics of the essays sprang from the specializations of the authors, and the title was an attempt to provide an umbrella under which the various and varied essays would somehow fit. While there are commonalities among the many articles, there are extraneous elements as well.

This book consists of fifteen essays.  The two editors each wrote two; Peter Hodgkinson did the first and last, while William Schabas penned the second and second from last.  The third and sixth essays shared joint authorship, the third by Robert Ferris and James Welsh, and the sixth by Marian Borg and Michael Radelet.  The fourth essay was by Andrew Coyle; the fifth by James Megivern; the seventh by M. Cherif Bassiouni; the eighth by Hugo Adam Bedau; the ninth by Ronald Tabak; the tenth by Aleksandras Dobryninas; the eleventh by Byung-Sun Cho; the twelfth by Eric Svandize; and the thirteenth by Julian Knowles.

There is a wealth of information contained in the essays, which are case studies of abolition activity in a number of countries around the world, including the United States, Lithuania, South Korea and Japan, British Caribbean Commonwealth, and, Georgia, a former Russian republic.  There is also a case study by Bassiouni dealing with the two sources of Islamic law and the essential role that the death penalty plays within it.

At the outset the editors pose a number of critical questions and hope to accomplish two objectives.  They “hope to isolate the core issues that influence the formulation of legislation so that they can be incorporated into strategies for advising governments considering changes to their policy on capital punishment.” And, they “also seek to redress the current imbalance in research, which tends to focus almost exclusively on the experience of the USA” (frontispiece).

The first chapter is devoted primarily to a survey of research on capital punishment by a number of scholars from around the world.  Notwithstanding this, the point is made that US efforts in this regard outweigh such activity in depth and breadth.  Even so, Hodgkinson maintains that reliance on American abolition experience has not provided “any benefits for [such] campaigns in the broader world community” (p.30).

This work, and others like it, come up against the fact that there is an abundance of research, data and case studies on capital punishment in the US, while the degree of success achieved in abolishing [*604] the death penalty appears to be in inverse proportion.  Some of the studies do note the political capital to be gained by office holders in taking a hard line on crime and pandering to the darker side of human nature in demanding the harshest of penalties. 

The second chapter succeeds in providing the current state of case law with respect to international law and capital punishment.  Schabas argues that it may and can serve as another weapon in the arsenal being used to abolish capital punishment in the US and elsewhere.

Ferris and Welsh make the case in Chapter Three that medical ethics preclude the participation of physicians and other health care professionals.  The proscription of Hippocrates’ “First, do no harm” is much in evidence (Epidemics, Bk. 1, Sect. XI).  The authors see ethical dilemmas facing health professionals fully resolved by not participating in the matter.

Coyle deals with alternative sanctions.  He sets forth the many different sanctions that can be invoked in place of the death penalty in countries around the globe, concluding: “What is clear is that the abolition movement cannot rest until punishments which have replaced the death penalty have become decent and humane and based on notions of restoration and reparation rather than merely on retribution” (p.115).

Megivern, in Chapter 5, makes the case that this country’s “religious traditions,” if tapped, could serve to bring about an end to “state killing” (p.141).  In Chapter 6 Borg and Radelet cite instances where individual states in our country have botched actual executions, and conclude that such practices are not rare, and can only be seen as “major blunders that often cause prolonged and painful deaths” (p.158).  The authors show that, between 1977 and December 2001, there were 34 instances of botched executions; they later describe these in some detail in an Appendix (pp.159-168).

An excellent progress report on the state of capital punishment in the US, provided by Tabak, reveals that implementation of the death penalty has become even less fair, while media coverage and public awareness of the subject has greatly increased (p.208).  The problem is that, while efforts at a moratorium on the death penalty have proven somewhat successful, this very success has lead to steps to clean up the machinery of death instead of its outright abolition.

In attempting to identify the obstacles in the US to abolishing the death penalty, Bedau points out that Americans “supports the death penalty because the politicians they elect support it,” and “politicians support it because they believe the public wants it (pp.202-203).

The American experience may be somewhat unique in that currently, cultural wars, dogmatic ideology, and extreme partisanship have come together to destroy any possible chance for outright abolition.  Competing “political values” have become non-negotiable demands.  The political arena has been poisoned with rancor simply because seeking and maintaining power—i.e., staying in office—has become the sine qua non of institutionalizing one faction’s personal credo.  When one is in possession of truth there is no need to [*605] engage in debate or compromise one’s position. 

This is a book in which the editors hope to use case studies in a number of countries around the world to influence efforts to abolish capital punishment.  What is interesting to the reviewer is that, notwithstanding a given country’s internal debate regarding the death penalty, these nations, not including the US, seldom have recourse to executions.

Hodgkinson notes at the outset that the book’s target audience is not just academicians.  In this regard he says that “the editors hope very much that the volume will inform and stimulate discussion among those who support and oppose the death penalty and in those forums frequented by legislators, the judiciary, medical and religious groups, the police and prison services, NGOs [non-governmental groups] and others concerned with protecting human rights” (p.2).

While the editors have marshaled a somewhat compelling case for this audience, it is questionable that the latter will hear their message.  This country is awash in books dealing with capital punishment.  This reviewer has previously commented upon two similar such books for the LAW AND POLITICS BOOK REVIEW.  The first review was of a book by Austin Sarat published in 1998, and the second was of a book by Franklin Zimring published in 2003.

In addition, a visit to Google in July 2004 revealed 3,560,000 entries under the subject heading capital punishment.  A second visit to Amazon.com under the “books” category at the same time revealed 450 books on the same subject.  The result is ever increasing din.  Earlier the reviewer noted the seeking of political capital by office holders, their ideological posturing on so many issues, our cultural wars, and seeking of political power to enshrine personal values, as characteristics of the American political landscape. 

In this cacophonous environment it is no wonder that our “progress” in abolishing capital punishment involves steps backward.  Someone once remarked that a civilization ought to be judged by the way it treats its most wretched.  The book’s authors have clearly shown how and why the wretched should be treated.  Perhaps all of us need only listen.  

REFERENCES:

Hippocrates.  “’First, Do No Harm’ is Not in the Hippocratic Oath,” Epidemics, Bk. 1, Sect. XI at: http://www.geocities.com/everwild7/noharm.html  © 2000 Everwild.

Sarat, Austin (ed.). 1998. THE KILLING STATE: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN LAW, POLITICS AND CULTURE. New York: Oxford University Press.

Zimring, Franklin E.  2003. THE CONTRADICTIONS OF AMERICAN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. New York: Oxford University Press. 

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Copyright 2004 by the author, Conrad P. Rutkowski.