The Impact of Teacher Method of Delivery and the Marshall Hypothesis (original) (raw)
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As we approach the 50-year anniversary of the landmark Furman decision, the time is ripe for a renewed empirical test of the hypotheses Justice Marshall presented in his concurring opinion. Most relevant to this study, he suggested in his second proposition that "people who were fully informed as to the purposes of the penalty and its liabilities would find the penalty, shocking, unjust and unacceptable." While there has been much empirical testing of this hypothesis, the intent of this study is to add to the existing literature by examining whether specific types of information about capital punishment is associated with opposition to capital punishment. Data were collected by an instructor who taught death penalty classes (n = 122 subjects) to test this hypothesis. Results provide qualified support for Marshall's second hypothesis that knowledge is significantly related to an increase in death penalty opposition. Moreover, the following factors were significant predictors of overall change in participants' opinion: cost, deterrence, race of victim, and evolving societies. Surprisingly, the innocence items did not appear statistically significant in altering opinions. Future research should
Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest, 2001
More and more people are being executed in the United States. Although polls lately reveal a growing ambivalence about capital punishment. 213 Americans still seem shockingly wedded to the death penalty, while much of the rest of the world has moved definitively away from it. 214 Little prevents our enthusiastic endorsement of the death penalty: 215 not the suspension of the death penalty in Illinois by Governor George Ryan in the face of clear evidence of wrongful convictions of thirteen death row inmates 21 6 and not the support by two-thirds of Americans for a moratorium of executions until questions of procedural fairness are addressed. 217 [5] In the wake of the first federal execution since 1963, 323 survivors, victims and friends witnessed the execution of Timothy McVeigh on a closed-circuit large-screen. Professor, Department of Political Science, Vassar College 213. Bob Herbert writes: "Wariness about the death penalty has steadily increased as more and more becomes known about the treacherous ways in which it is imposed." Bob Herbert, Support for Death Penalty Rightly Dwindles, SUN-SENTINEL, Feb. 7, 2001, at 29A. There does appear to be a growing support for a moratorium on executions in the face of concerns about the fairness of procedures and the growing awareness of DNA evidence resulting in the release of death row inmates. Cities across the country have supported symbolic moratoriums (which, however, do not have the force of law), and major newspapers have written editorials favoring them. See see also
SAGE Open, 2016
Although a sizable number of studies have gathered information from college students regarding their varying degrees of support for capital punishment, few have explored the underlying rationales behind these students' death penalty support or opposition. In addition, although criminal justice majors have frequently been used as study participants, little research has sought to explore if law enforcement majors are different in manners for supporting or opposing capital punishment than other criminal justice majors. In the current study, a survey designed to measure reasons for support or opposition to capital punishment was administered to a convenience sample of 135 criminal justice and law enforcement majors at a midsize Midwestern university. The results indicated that law enforcement majors were not significantly different from criminal justice majors on measures of support or opposition to capital punishment. There were, however, some notable differences found related to the academic standing of the students.
This study examines race-and gender-specific tests of the Marshall hypotheses, which assert that increases in knowledge about capital punishment result in decreases in death penalty support, except among those holding retributivistic views. In light of White racism and gender theories, we predicted both racial and gender variation in support for these claims. Using data from a series of 1-group pretest-posttest designs assessing the outcomes of several courses on capital punishment, the analysis reveals that the effects of knowledge gains on changes in death penalty support, "truth" acceptance, and "myth" adherence are neither racially nor gender invariant. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Expanding the Spectrum of Attitudes Toward the Death Penalty
Criminal Justice Review, 2014
Overall, studies show that the majority of Americans support the use of the death penalty for murderers; however, few studies have investigated response patterns to death penalty survey questions that offer more than yes/no response options. Without a realistic understanding of Americans’ attitudes, the existence of this controversial legislation may hinge on inaccurate depictions of public opinion. The current study utilizes a college sample of students from a southern university ( N = 775, average age 22) to investigate how nondichotomous response options affect our understandings of death penalty attitudes. Using independent variables that are commonly found in quantitative studies about death penalty attitudes (i.e., religiosity, biblical literalism, political attitudes, race, gender, age, southern region) as well as independent variables less commonly seen in death penalty studies (i.e., feminist identity, and student-specific variables: grade point average, freshman status, hi...
The Troy Davis Effect: Does Information on Wrongful Convictions Affect Death Penalty Opinions?
Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 2014
Furman v. Georgia, numerous studies have examined the factors affecting support for the death penalty. Although it is known that the death penalty continues to have strong support in the United States, it remains unclear how the rise in media coverage of wrongful convictions and the increasing number of Hispanics in the United States will affect opinions of and support for the death penalty. Using a sample of students at a predominantly Hispanic university, this study explores the effect of exposure to information on wrongful convictions on opinions about the death penalty.
Reasons for Supporting and Opposing Capital Punishment in the USA: A Preliminary Study
2000
The death penalty is a controversial subject in our society. Research has explored why people support or oppose capital punishment. Most the literature to date looks at the reasons provided one at a time. In this study, a multivariate analysis was conducted to see which reasons best explain the observed variation of support and opposition for capital punishment. It was found that emotional retribution, emotional opposition, morality, and law and order, were the only reasons which had statistically significant effects on the degree of death penalty support among college students at a Midwestern university. Other variables, such as fear of crime, religious measures, other punishment ideologies, and personal characteristics (which earlier studies found statistically significant using bivariate analysis) were not statistically significant in this study. The results suggest the need for greater attention to and more study of death penalty attitudes using multivariate analysis.