The Death Penalty

by Roger Hood, Carolyn Hoyle

2015 · OUP Oxford

The fifth edition of this highly praised study charts and explains the progress that continues to be made towards the goal of worldwide abolition of the death penalty. The majority of nations have now abolished the death penalty and the number of executions has dropped in almost all countries where abolition has not yet taken place. Emphasising the impact of international human rights principles and evidence of abuse, the authors examine how this has fuelled challenges to the death penalty and they analyse and appraise the likely obstacles, political and cultural, to further abolition. They discuss the cruel realities of the death penalty and the failure of international standards always to ensure fair trials and to avoid arbitrariness, discrimination and conviction of the innocent: all violations of the right to life. They provide further evidence of the lack of a general deterrent effect; shed new light on the influence and limits of public opinion; and argue that substituting for the death penalty life imprisonment without parole raises many similar human rights concerns. This edition provides a strong intellectual and evidential basis for regarding capital punishment as undeniably cruel, inhuman and degrading. Widely relied upon and fully updated to reflect the current state of affairs worldwide, this is an invaluable resource for all those who study the death penalty and work towards its removal as an international goal.

The Beautiful Catastrophe of Wind

by Roger Theodoredis

2009 · iUniverse

No one ever chooses to stop at Black Rock Mesa, it's too desolate. The brutal wind, ever-present and temperamental, tests the willpower of the most stalwart residents. So, when a mysterious woman impulsively disembarks from a bus and gets blown into the town's general store, her presence causes quite a stir. She says little, but her Asian features earn her the nickname "Tokyo." Deciding to stay in town, she reveals little about her past, and is comforted to find little is asked. Slowly she comes to see that Black Rock is not like other towns -- due to the wind, everything, even time, works a bit differently. Black Rock, she learns, was founded by three prospectors looking for gold -- Noah, Shlomo and Apie. Noah, the most charismatic of the three, attracted quarrymen to this unforgiving place to tirelessly chip and haul the slate down from the mesa. But the big gaps left in the stories of the past hint to Tokyo that the town folk have secrets bigger than her own. No one is talking, not even the man Tokyo takes up with, Luke, Noah's son. This reticence suits Tokyo just fine, until one day a strange man shows up in Black Rock with revelations. Ultimately, no secret is immune.