Deciding on Death: The Diffusion of Capital Punishment Policy Between the United States Supreme Court and State Legislatures
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2014
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The policy diffusion literature has begun to explore the possibility of vertical and cross-venue influences on the policy process. In this thesis, I sought to understand whether Supreme Court action on the death penalty in the 2000s influenced state legislative action on the death penalty. Such an understanding can advance both the literature exploring the current state of the death penalty in the United States as well as the emerging policy diffusion literature concerning the influence of courts on legislative action. I investigated this question through mixed methods, conducting statistical analyses on trends in the introduction of bills in state legislatures and through case studies of legislative action on the death penalty in New Hampshire and New Mexico. I tracked introduction of legislation from 2000-2013 in 18 states with varying levels of support for the death penalty, coding for attitude of each bill towards capital punishment and how far it progresses in the legislative process. To understand the debates at the state level, I conducted case studies of states seeking to abolish the death penalty following a significant Supreme Court ruling. I find no increase in legislation introduced and no consistent, overarching trend in state legislative activity following Supreme Court decisions in the 2000s. However, changes in the type of legislation introduced and political viability of bills exist for certain time periods and types of states. From my qualitative analysis, I find that state discussions surrounding the death penalty reference Supreme Court decisions and discourse, but that the discussions at the state level revolve around different questions. These results do not align with previous policy diffusion research finding increases in the introduction of state legislation following broad, national influences on a particular issue. The results also provide an alarming finding for activists' Supreme Court decisions that abolitionists hope will destabilize the death penalty which may spur protection of the death penalty at the state level. However, the identification of changes in state legislative action necessitates further research into cross-venue, vertical diffusion concerning other policy areas.