“This inmate declined to make a last statement”: A Quantitative Exploration of the Determinants of Inmate Execution Final Statements in Texas, 1982-2022

Walliss, John and Littler, Mark (2024) “This inmate declined to make a last statement”: A Quantitative Exploration of the Determinants of Inmate Execution Final Statements in Texas, 1982-2022. Current Perspectives in Social Sciences. ISSN 2822-3160 (Accepted for Publication)

Text (final version) death row silence article (REVISED JUNE 2024) DOI removed.docx - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (37kB)

Abstract

The last two decades have witnessed a significant growth in the volume of academic work exploring the final statements of inmates executed in the United States of America. While this has done much to advance academic understanding of final statements, comparably little attention has been paid to the not-insignificant number of inmates who decline to speak prior to their execution. The article presents the results of a regression analysis of a 574-case data set covering all executions conducted in Texas between December 1982 and April 2022. Despite including a range of variables, analysis identified only a single significant result: the presence of victims' family and/or close friends. The significance of this finding for existing scholarship and practice is discussed, alongside possible directions for future research.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	death row, Texas, capital punishment, final statements
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Business, Law and Criminology > School of Law and Criminology
Depositing User:	John Walliss
Date Deposited:	05 Jul 2024 11:16
Last Modified:	05 Jul 2024 11:16
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4309

Actions (login required)

View Item