[DOWNLOAD] "Virtue and Vice: Who will Report on the Failings of the American Criminal Justice System?(Symposium: Media, Justice, And the Law)" by Stanford Law School # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Virtue and Vice: Who will Report on the Failings of the American Criminal Justice System?(Symposium: Media, Justice, And the Law)
- Author : Stanford Law School
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 358 KB
Description
INTRODUCTION Insert the name of the condemned man and some facts about the crime; add a paragraph quoting the victim's family; note any last-minute protestations of innocence or expressions of remorse on the part of the defendant; and update the execution tally. In a matter of grave national importance--the execution of Americans by this country's most notorious killing state, Texas (1)--this formulaic ritual constitutes American crime reporting. After a brief suspension during the United States Supreme Court's consideration of the constitutionality of lethal-injection procedures in Baze v. Rees, (2) Texas resumed executions in June 2008. (3) From that point until the end of the year, it executed eighteen people. (4) Each of the eighteen men killed by the state of Texas raised substantial questions about the fairness and validity of their convictions and death sentences: representation by ineffective trial counsel, mental illness, violations of international covenants, and failures by state and federal appellate courts to reach meritorious issues because of procedural bars. But such information has no place in the fill-in-the-blanks template employed by the newspapers providing coverage of the executions. Consider a few examples: