Is the small number of commutations in capital cases these days, relative to days of yore, the result of an anti-mercy political pressure on governors, as the anti-DP crowd would have us believe? Or is it simply because there is less need for commutation in the modern system?
From the NCJRS weekly accessions list: James R. Acker, Talia Harmon, and Craig Rivera, Merciful Justice: Lessons From 50 Years of New York Death Penalty Commutations, Criminal Justice Review Volume:35 Issue:2 Dated:June 2010 Pages:183 to 199.
Abstract follows the jump.
From the NCJRS weekly accessions list: James R. Acker, Talia Harmon, and Craig Rivera, Merciful Justice: Lessons From 50 Years of New York Death Penalty Commutations, Criminal Justice Review Volume:35 Issue:2 Dated:June 2010 Pages:183 to 199.
Abstract follows the jump.
This article examines the reasons offered by seven New York governors in justification of their decisions to commute death sentences in 159 cases between 1920 and 1970. In doing so, it scrutinizes the common assertion that, in marked contrast to contemporary death penalty cases, merciful considerations once were bountiful in sparing condemned offenders from execution. An examination of the New York governors' reasons for granting clemency and the legal context within which their decisions were made suggests that mercy accounted for few death sentence commutations during this time period and that other considerations predominated. To the extent that the New York experience resembles that of other states historically, the analysis suggests that the comparatively infrequent use of executive clemency in contemporary capital cases may owe more to the significant differences in death penalty laws and their administration during the different eras than to a diminished role for mercy.
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