The present study tested the proposition that disengagement of moral self-sanctions enables prison personnel to carry out the death penalty. Three subgroups of personnel in penitentiaries located in three Southern states were assessed in terms of eight mechanisms of moral disengagement. The personnel included the execution teams that carry out the executions; the support teams that provide sola...

Ethical, philosophical and religious values are central to the continuing controversy over capital punishment. Nevertheless, factual evidence can and should inform policy making. The evidence for capital punishment as an uniquely effective deterrent to murder is especially important, since deterrence is the only major pragmatic argument on the pro-death penalty side.1 The purpose of this paper ...

Historically, the church has affirmed the right of the civil magistrate in matters of capital justice. Contemporary culture, in contrast, is permeated with arguments against capital punishment. Even among those professing Christian faith, there is widespread opposition to the death penalty. As a trend, the ever-increasing role of the media in manipulating public sentiment in the face of pressin...

On February 10, 2003, the American Bar Association (ABA) approved the revised edition of its Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases. Their purpose is to articulate the “national standard of practice for the defense of capital cases;” they “are not aspirational. Instead, they embody the current consensus about what is required to provide effectiv...

This paper provides an overview of different approaches to policy evaluation. We focus on how different types of uncertainty should be accounted for in the policy evaluation process. Appropriate incorporation of uncertainty in policy evaluation leads to what we call sturdy decisions. We describe classical Bayesian decision theory and decision theory under ambiguity. We provide examples ranging ...

The American Psychological Association's (APA's) stance on the psychological maturity of adolescents has been criticized as inconsistent. In its Supreme Court amicus brief in Roper v. Simmons (2005), which abolished the juvenile death penalty, APA described adolescents as developmentally immature. In its amicus brief in Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), however, which upheld adolescents' right to se...

This essay reviews the evidence on the deterrent effect of police, imprisonment, and capital punishment and in addition summarizes knowledge of sanction risk perceptions. Studies of changes in police presences, whether achieved by changes in police numbers or in their strategic deployment, consistently find evidence of deterrent effects. Studies of the deterrent effect of increases in already l...

By the mid-1990s, the ―machinery of death‖ was not only working, but in fact, humming. 2 Year after year, hundreds of additional persons were added to death row, and the number of executions climbed to heights not seen in many decades. 3 In 1994 alone, 315 new death sentences were imposed—a record never exceeded, and matched only once (in 1996), after executions resumed in 1976 following Furman...

Theologically informed positions are grounded in core beliefs and may be rationally discussed. We analyze Dr. Norko's suggestion on how, in the public square, to address moral disagreements. We point out the dangers of "deliberative democracy" as an approach to resolving conflicts over basic values. We suggest an alternative approach, better grounded in reason, as a way of bringing religious an...

Field Editor: D. Shepherd This study examines the conditions under which portfolios of corporate venture capital (CVC) relationships influence corporate investor innovation performance. We investigate this question using longitudinal data on CVC investment portfolios of 40 telecommunications equipment manufacturers. We find an inverted U-shaped effect of portfolio diversity on corporate investo...