Scheme

Introduction

I) Death penalty in the United States

A. Historical analysis of the death penalty in the United States

1) First death penalty cases in the United States

2) Evolution during the nineteenth century

3) Towards the national abolition?

4) Suspension by the Supreme Court

5) The restoration

6) Evolution of the application of death penalty since 1976

a) Number of executions

b) Number of sentences

c) Evolution of the criminal process

B. Criminal Law in the United States

1) Who sentences to death?

2) The United States judicial system

3) The criminal law

a) At the state level

b) The jury

4) How is death penalty sentenced?

5) Time spent on death row and living conditions in prison

C. Geographic analysis of abolitionist and retentionist States today

1) Retentionist jurisdictions

a) Geographic analysis of the retentionist states

b) Evolution since 1976

c) A stricter application in the South?

2) States with moratoria

a) States where death penalty statutes were declared unconstitutional

b) Moratoria for general death penalty concerns

c) Moratoria because of lethal injection issue

3) Abolitionist states

II) Geographic analysis of the application of death penalty

A. A different application in the law

1) Offenses subject to the death penalty

2) The different methods of execution used

a) Description

- Lethal injection

- Electric chair

- Lethal gas

- Hanging

- Firing squad

b) The application of each method

B. Regional analysis and first explanations

1) Is there a link between the Republican Party and the death penalty?

2) The historical explanation for a stricter application in the South

C. Comparison with other figures

1) Demographic analysis

a) Proportion of death row inmates to state population

b) Actual number of executions per inhabitant

2) Racial analysis

a) The United States society, a heterogeneous composition

b) Death row, a demographic account

c) State by State composition of the death row population

d) Racial discrimination by function of the defendant and the victim

3) Economic influence concerning death penalty and its application

4) Criminal rate and deterrent effect

III) The case study of Texas

A. General description of the State

1) Geography

2) Demography

3) Criminality

B. Politics and justice

1) The executive power

2) Court Structure of Texas

C. Death penalty in Texas

1) Texan governors and death penalty

a) George W Bush

b) Current Governor Rick Perry

2) Capital crimes in Texas

3) An alternative: Life Imprisonment

4) The principal actors of the judicial machine

a) The District Attorney

b) The judge

c) The Jury

5) Comparison of costs

6) The Clemency process

a) In the United States

b) Clemency under Texas state law

7) Reasons for the high number of executions

a) Legal reasons

b) Cultural reasons

D. Main debates on death penalty

1) Arbitrariness and discrimination

2) Representation

3) The deterrent effect

4) Miscarriages of justice and innocent in the death row

5) DNA testing

6) The position of the Church

7) Public opinion

8) Abolitionist movements and institutions

Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography