The book is a work of criminal justice history that speaks to the emergence of a more humane Irish state - a close examination of the decision to grant clemency to those sentenced to death between 1923 and 1990, addressing important issues of law and penology that are of continuing relevance for countries that use capital punishment.

• Preface


• List of tables


• Introduction


• The revolutionary period


• Parameters of inquiry


• Avoiding death-eligibility


• Classifying Clemency


• Who, where, how?


• A tripartitie scheme


• The 'prerogative'


• For and Against Clemency


• Discretion and desert


• Cons


• Pros


• Justice, mercy, caprice


• Juries and Judges


• Weighing the evidence


• Composition


• Softening the verdict


• Donning the black cap


• A singular case


• Extraordinary Courts


• Special Powers Tribunal


• The 'terror court'


• Astounding legal manoeuvres


• Capital murder


• Governments


• Limits to discretion


• Public opinion


• Groupthink


• Arbitrary or principled decisions?


• Blurring the Separation of Powers


• Interfering judges


• A belt of the crozier


• Entreaties from His Excellency


• Judges again, now expediting release


• Undoing Death I


• A cruel lottery?


• The burden of an unwanted child


• Sex and jealousy


• Undoing Death II


• Dreadful deeds done in turbulent times


• Legally sane but strikingly odd


• Chivalry


• Caprice


• Release


• Procedures


• When?


• Whither?


• Why?


• Postscript


• Appendices


• I. Convicted of murder after trial by jury, and spared


• II. Convicted of murder after trial by jury, and hanged


• III. Sentenced to death by a non-jury court


• Bibliography


• I. Primary sources


• II. Secondary sources


• Index

Ian O'Donnell MRIA is Professor of Criminology at University College Dublin and an Adjunct Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. His last book, also published as part of OUP's Clarendon Studies in Criminology, was Prisoners, Solitude, and Time.