Book Review: Haney, C. (2005). Death by Design: Capital Punishment as a Social Psychological System. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. xvi, 329

• Author: Jacob Goldstein
• Published date: 01 September 2007
• Date: 01 September 2007
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016807306303
• Subject Matter: Articles

the resolution of a particular question. Used in this way, Gillespie’s work may prove quite

useful as an aid in the discussion of such a complex topic.

Jennifer Adger

American University, Washington, DC

Reference

Johnson, R. (1998). Death work: A study of the modern execution process (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA:Wadsworth.

Haney, C. (2005). Death by Design: Capital Punishment as a Social

Psychological System. New York: Oxford University Press,

pp. xvi, 329.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016807306303

Written by an author with expertise in both psychology and law, this is an outstanding

book that traces factors in the American social and legal system that favor the death penalty

in capital cases.

One of the book’s main themes is that “the death penalty creates tensions and strains in

our legal culture that are managed largely through a process of collective denial,” whereby

“the image of fairness and procedural propriety . . . is too often contradicted by a reality of

unfairness, unpredictability, and morally disengaged decision making”(p. xii). More specif-

ically, this process of “collective denial” makes it possible for the participants to engage in

what under many other conditions would be a forbidden activity—the taking of human life.

Haney traces systematically in this regard the role of the media in influencing public opin-

ion in favor of capital punishment by exaggerating the dangers presented by criminal activity

and by dehumanizing and stereotyping the criminal; by features of jury selection in capital

cases, including disqualification of potential jurors who express their opposition to capital

punishment and/or who express doubt about their ability to vote for a death verdict, and by

suggesting to potential jurors—whether intentionally or otherwise—through the manner of

questioning by the prosecution or by the judge in the course of jury selection that a willingness

to vote for the death penalty is what is desired by authority figures; by the fact that the prose-

cution has a chance to present a strong negative image of the defendant long before the defense

can present mitigating factors (in the event that the defendant is found guilty); by a typical

underrepresentation in the juries in capital cases of women and Blacks (two groups more likely

to be opposed to capital punishment than members of groups more typically represented in

capital juries); and by a host of problems presented by misuse or failure to use the concepts of

mitigation and aggravation in cases where, as is now true in a number of states, a jury that has

found a defendant guilty of a capital crime has to make a choice (following a second trial)

between the death penalty and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

These problems include frequently poor presentation of the concepts of mitigation and

aggravation by the judge to the jury; frequent difficulty the jurors have in understanding

Book Reviews 295