Facts and furies: The antinomies of facts, law, and retribution in the work of capital prosecutors

Abstract

Recent trends against capital punishment raise the question of whether or when the U.S. is going to abolish the death penalty. One way of investigating this possibility is to study the work of capital prosecutors. In this chapter I analyze California capital prosecutors through a close reading of trial transcripts and interviews. The results show that prosecutor discourses evince a paradox – while instantiating powerful ideological themes that may underlie state killing, prosecutors also assert the primacy of ‘facts’ and ‘law.’ While this tension does not represent a strict measure of capital punishment's lifespan, its presence suggests that these types of tensions are not enough to change the law, thereby hinting that while the death penalty may be weakened in the United States, it is not close to dying.

Citation

Kaplan, P.J. (2008), "Facts and furies: The antinomies of facts, law, and retribution in the work of capital prosecutors", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Special Issue: Is the Death Penalty Dying? (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 42), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 135-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1059-4337(07)00405-X