Roger and Karen Jones Faculty Scholar at the State University of New York Buffalo School of Law
Position:
Not Clearly Pro or Con
to the question "Should the death penalty be allowed?"
Reasoning:
"Today, punitive strategy has shifted from treatment to containment, from rehabilitation to incapacitation. Any residual faith in the possibility of psychological manipulation has been eradicated by the 'nothing works' assault on rehabilitationism, so much so that the criminological marker search has begun to rediscover the offender's body. As recently as the fall of 1995, a conference in Maryland was devoted to the genetic origins of crime.19 The exploration of physical criminality markers, however, holds no promise of rehabilitative
treatment because the perceived immutability of distinguishing characteristics of criminality stands in direct proportion to their perceived physicality. After
all, the manipulation of the offender's body, say through psychosurgery or mutilation, continues to be frowned upon in important (but fuzzy) contrast to the manipulation of his soul, say through aversive conditioning or solitary
confinement. The persistence of capital punishment in the United States is not to the contrary. Paradoxically, rehabilitationism's medical model of punishment remains most influential in the infliction of the one punishment that can never rehabilitate, the death penalty. As a result, it is the very aphysicality at the heart of rehabilitationism that now makes rehabilitation impossible."
"The Right to Be Punished: Autonomy and Its Demise in Modern Penal Thought," Law and History Review, Spring 1998
Experts
Individuals with MDs, JDs, PhDs, other relevant advanced degrees, corrections and government officials with significant involvement in, or related to, death penalty issues. [Note: Experts definition varies by site]
Involvement and Affiliations:
Roger and Karen Jones Faculty Scholar, State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law, 2004-present
Professor of Law, State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law, 1999-present
Member, American Law Institute, 2002
Editor-in-Chief, New Criminal Law Review, 2006-2008
Director, Buffalo Criminal Law Center, 1996-2008
Editor, Buffalo Criminal Law Review, 1996-2006
Associate Professor of Law, State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law, 1993-1999
Harry A. Bigelow Teaching Fellow & Lecturer in Law, University of Chicago Law School, 1992-1993
Judicial Clerk, Chambers of Gerald B. Tjoflat, Chief Judge, US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, 1991-1992
