Flawed Executions, the Anti-Death Penalty Movement, and the Politics of Capital Punishment
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Abstract
“Suddenly realized grievances” (Useem 1980; Walsh 1981) play an important but largely unacknowledged role in the struggle over capital punishment in the United States. One form such grievances may take is that of “flawed executions”—executions in which public sensibilities are offended by a breakdown in routine procedures of convicting murderers and putting them to death. This paper discusses four ways in which executions may be flawed: executions may be technically botched, convicts may not play their assigned roles, the prescribed solemnity of the death chamber may be compromised, and finally, irregularities in conviction and sentencing may come to light. When abolitionist organizations and the press make issues of these flaws, they become factors in death penalty politics. An analysis of newspaper coverage suggests that flawed convictions, in which possibly innocent persons either suffer or narrowly escape execution, are especially potent threats to public support for capital punishment. The paper concludes by stressing the centrality of social movement organizations and the media in transforming underpublicized or affect-neutral events into suddenly realized grievances.