The Future of America's Death Penalty

Capital Punishment: The Defining Issues for the Next Generation, comprised of original chapters authored by nationally distinguished scholars, is an ambitious effort to identify the most critical issues confronting the future of capital punishment in the United States and the steps that must be taken to gather and analyze the information that will be necessary for informed policy judgments. Contributors will articulate the most pressing issues of administration, litigation, legislation, and executive action confronting the future of capital punishment, and identify research strategies designed to supply answers to those questions. The book represents a valuable academic contribution, particularly within criminal justice and law, and promises to be of interest as well to policymakers and practitioners. It will be published a generation after the Supreme Court?s landmark decision in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) heralded the ?modern era? of capital punishment, and at a time when the efficacy and operation of the death penalty are under intensive scrutiny by governmental study commissions throughout the country. The book is organized into six sections: (A) Institutional and Disciplinary Perspectives on the Death Penalty; (B) Capital Punishment: Public Policy Perspectives; (C) The Death Penalty as Applied; (D) Participants in the Capital Punishment Process; (E) The Punishment of Death; and (F) Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Toward a Research Agenda for the Future.

Charles S. Lanier is a professor of criminal justice at the University at Albany-SUNY. William J. Bowers is a member of the Capital Punishment Research Initiative and director of the National Science Foundation-funded Capital Jury Project. James R. Acker is a professor of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany School-SUNY.