A new book by Andrew Hammel offers insights into the different perspectives on the death penalty in America and Europe. “Ending the Death Penalty: The European Experience in Global Perspective” examines three countries that do not have the death penalty (Germany, France and the United Kingdom), and analyzes how capital punishment was ended in those countries. Hammel ultimately believes that the governmental structure, culture, and political traditions in the U.S. make the European model of abolition unlikey to succeed here, though he also states that “important piecemeal victories” in limiting capital punishment are likely to continue in the U.S. Andrew Hammel is Assistant Professor for American Law at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany. He has worked as a lawyer with the Texas Defender Service, where he represented death row inmates in U.S. state and federal courts.
(A. Hammel, “Ending the Death Penalty: The European Experience in Global Perspective,” Palgrave Macmillan, July 2010). See International and Books on the death penalty.
