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“I'll Make Them Shoot Me”: Accounts of Death Row Prisoners Advocating for Execution
Author(s) -
Rountree Meredith Martin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2012.00507.x
Subject(s) - punishment (psychology) , adversarial system , legal process , narrative , law , process (computing) , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , political science , sociology , criminology , law and economics , psychology , social psychology , computer science , philosophy , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics , operating system
About 11% of death‐sentenced prisoners executed in the U nited S tates hastened executions by abandoning their appeals. How do these prisoners persuade courts to allow them to abandon their appeals? Further, how do legal structures and processes organize these explanations, and what do they conceal? An analysis of Texas cases suggests that prisoners marshal explanations for their desires to hasten execution that echo prevailing cultural beliefs about punishment and the death penalty. The coherence of these accounts is amplified by a non‐adversarial, unreliable legal process. This article contributes to our understanding of legal narratives, and expands their analysis to include not only hegemonic stories and legal rules, but also the legal process that generates them.