The rope, the chair, and the needle : capital punishment in Texas, 1923-1990
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Bibliographic Information
The rope, the chair, and the needle : capital punishment in Texas, 1923-1990
University of Texas Press, 1998, c1994
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The rope, the chair, & the needle : capital punishment in Texas, 1923-1990
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Note
"First paperback printing, 1998"--T.p. verso
Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-267) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In late summer 1923, legal hangings in Texas came to an end, and the electric chair replaced the gallows. Of 520 convicted capital offenders sentenced to die between 1923 and 1972, 361 were actually executed, thus maintaining Texas' traditional reputation as a staunch supporter of capital punishment.
This book is the single most comprehensive examination to date of capital punishment in any one state, drawing on data for legal executions from 1819 to 1990. The authors show persuasively how slavery and the racially biased practice of lynching in Texas led to the institutionalization and public approval of executions skewed according to race, class, and gender, and they also track long-term changes in public opinion up to the present.
The stories of the condemned are masterfully interwoven with fact and interpretation to provide compelling reading for scholars of law, criminal justice, race relations, history, and sociology, as well as partisans on both sides of the debate.
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1. From Lynchings to Electrocutions
Chapter 2. The Initial "Harvest of Death": 1924-1972
Chapter 3. Rape, Race, and a "Peculiar Chivalry"
Chapter 4. Capital Murder and Midnight Appeals
Chapter 5. Spared the Chair and Sentenced to Life
Chapter 6. Adoption of Lethal Injection and Contemporary Death Rituals
Chapter 7. Stages of Sentencing and Future Dangerousness of Convicts
Chapter 8. Some Closing Thoughts
Appendix A. Statute Providing for the Electrocution of Convicts Condemned to Death
Appendix B. Death Row Prisoners, 1923-1988
Appendix C. Post-1974 Department of Corrections Procedures for the Execution of Death-sentenced Inmates
Notes
References
Court Cases
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"
