EXECUTING SENTENCES IN LOLITA

Abstract

A “sentence,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a pronouncement of opinion, a pithy statement, an authoritative decision, or an idea expressed in a grammatically complete, self-contained utterance. Notice that these definitions all emphasize thought rather than action. Of course, sentences – such as “Let there be light,” “Keep off the grass,” “You shall be hanged by the neck until dead,” and “Notice that these definitions all emphasize thought rather than action” – may command or recommend an act. Some philosophers even maintain that “certain classes of utterances, in certain situations…bring about, rather than refer to, a new state of fact” (Hollander, 1996, p. 178). J. L. Austin, whose book How to Do Things with Words established the field of speech-act theory, argues that “performative” statements can have the effect of actions (1962).¹ And yet the words in a sentence – whether it is an ordinary linguistic unit or the judgment in a criminal case – are still distinguishable from the deed they describe. The differences between pronouncing and executing sentences even led Justice Antonin Scalia to assert, in Wilson v. Seiter, that restrictions against “cruel and unusual punishment” should apply only to pain “formally meted out as punishment by the statute or the sentencing judge,” or meant to be cruel and unusual by the inflicting officer (1991, p. 2325). He is assuming, of course, a legal system that “guarantees – or is supposed to – a relatively faithful adherence to the word of the judge in the deeds carried out against the prisoner” (Cover, 1992, p. 225).² As Scalia’s remarks demonstrate, however, the distinction between a sentence’s pronouncement, on the one hand, and its execution, on the other, raises disturbing questions about intention, interpretation, agency, and responsibility.

Citation

Elizabeth Sweeney, S. (2003), "EXECUTING SENTENCES IN LOLITA", Sarat, A. and Ewick, P. (Ed.) Punishment, Politics and Culture (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 30), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 185-209. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1059-4337(03)30008-0