Workshop: Four Perspectives on the Death Penalty in America

by Mark J. Mahoney, Bufalo, NY

 

The focus of this workshop will be on new perspectives on the death penalty which, though based on mimetic theory, are of very practical application. The workshop will suggest the manner in which the COVR community can help avoid executions by involvement in actual death penalty cases. (10 minutes for introduction of each segment)

 

  1. The legal and political implications of the death penalty as a scapegoating ritual

    2.  

    The death penalty is a scapegoating ritual which, by its ancestry and function is Areligious,@ especially given the broad legal definition of what constitutes a system of religious beliefs and practices.

     

    Therefore it may be argued that the death penalty, as a religious practice, offends the First Amendment proscription against the AEstablishment of Religion.@ But can it be proven? If exposition of the scapegoating function tends to undercut its acceptance, then this analysis of the death penalty ought to be part of the abolitionist strategy in the United States.

     

  2. Mimesis and Amitigation.@

    3.  

    Saving the life of the accused who has been found guilty of capital murder often comes down to providing an explanation of the behavior of the accused which makes her unsuitable as a sacrificial victim. Where the Ausual@ explanations fail, or in any event, can evaluation of the violent behavior as mimetic add a missing, and possibly saving, element to the case?

     

  3. ALet he who is without sin . . .@: arguing for life

    4.  

    Exposing the scapegoating mechanism in the death penalty, and demythologizing the death penalty, as a tool for persuasion in individual death cases.

     

  4. AHistory of myth@ and the 8th Amendment concept of Aevolving standards of decency@

 

While accepting in principle the concept that the death penalty may become inconsistent with the Aevolving standards of decency which mark the progress of a maturing society,@ courts are unwilling to look beyond legislative enactments in the United States for evidence of such evolution. Among other things, can the process of demythification of collective violence in society, including our state-sanctioned executions, persuade the courts that there is not only an identifiable direction and mechanism of our social evolution, but that the stateCas embodied in the legislatureCis bound to deny its existence, and not mark its progress?

 

 

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