Social Context of Capital Murder: Social Histories and the Logic of Mitigation Symposium: The Death Penalty: Race, Poverty and Justice 35 Santa Clara Law Review 1994-1995

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35 Santa Clara L. Rev. 547 (1994-1995)
Social Context of Capital Murder: Social Histories and the Logic of Mitigation

handle is hein.journals/saclr35 and id is 565 raw text is: THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF CAPITAL MURDER:
SOCIAL HISTORIES AND THE LOGIC OF
MITIGATION
Craig Haney*
The death penalty, which really neither provides an exam-
ple nor assures distributive justice, simply usurps an exor-
bitant privilege by claiming to punish an always relative
culpability by a definitive and irreparable punishment.
-Albert Camus'
As great as is my compassion for Robert Harris the child, I
cannot excuse nor forgive the choice made by Robert Harris
the man.
-California Governor Pete Wilson2
I. INTRODUCTION
The system of death sentencing in the United States is a
model of bad faith. It is founded upon several basic myths,
one concerning the reality of capital murder-the act that
gives rise to the punishment, another concerning capital ju-
risprudence-the legal procedures by which those defendants
who supposedly deserve to die are selected from those who do
not, and one concerning the reality of executions-the act
that culminates the lethal process. The first myth, what
might be called the myth of demonic agency, serves to deny
the humanity of the persons who commit capital murder, sub-
stituting the heinousness of their crimes for the reality of
their personhood. The second one-the myth of super due
process-implies that the legal procedures under which cap-
ital punishment is administered are so extraordinarily fair
* Professor of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz; B.A. Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania (1969), M.A. Stanford University (1971), Ph.D. Stan-
ford University (1978), J.D. Stanford Law School (1978).
1. Albert Camus, Reflections on the Guillotine, in Resistance, Rebellion,
and Death 131, 161 (1960).
2. Decision, In the Matter of the Clemency Request of Robert Alton Harris,
at 3 (Apr. 16, 1992).

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