What kind of self is the executable subject? -- The medieval origins of the Supreme Court's prohibition on executing the insane -- The unlucky psychopath as death penalty prototype -- Waiving from death row -- No remorse -- Constructing the executable subject: sacrifice and the rituals of State killing -- The unsacrificeable subject? -- Last words: structuring the State's power to punish -- The meaning of death: last words, last meals -- New perspectives on selfhood and the purposes of capital punishment -- Executing retributivism: Panetti and the future of the eighth amendment -- Therapeutic death -- The dead, the human animal, the executable subject.
Summary:
Death penalty scholars "assess the forms of legal subjectivity and legal community that are supported and constructed by the doctrines and practices of punishment by death in the United States. They help us understand what we do and who we become when we decide who is fit for execution." -- Back cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.