1

Rise and Fall of the Personal Essay in Media

Student Name

Columbia Southern University

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Annotated Bibliography Format Checklist

1-inch margins

Double spacing

Times New Roman (suggested)

Paragraphs indentation of .5 inch

(using Tab)

All seven references in alphabetical

order

Each annotation is 150 to 200 words

Center the title of your paper

above the first reference. 2

Rise and Fall of the Personal Essay in Media

Almanza, M., Pfizer, A., & Mousislli, H. (2016). The dread rise. Journal of Journalism Studies,

7(89), 134–152. https://doi.org/10.2597/234-4722.2016.05

First, list your

reference in

APA Style.

The

annotation, or

summary of

the source,

should begin

under the

reference.

Indent the first

line of the

paragraphs in

your

annotations.

This source is an article for the con side of the research topic. Almanza et al.

examine blogs and internet sites that allowed amateur writers to publish or self-publish

whatever stories they chose. The authors provide examples of stories as tinder for their

strong polemic on the personal essay. They also include a graph that details the start of

what they term the “dread rise,” or the rise in popularity of the personal essay; the graph

starts in 2008 and ends in late 2016. The graph will be used as a visualization of the rise

and fall of personal essays. Almanza et al. also argue that the more confessional personal

essays devalue the entire literary community by allowing writers to publish work based

on shock value instead of literary merit. They provide a few excerpts from confessional

essays that are truly absurd to thoroughly prove their point. These excerpts will be used

to argue the con part of the research paper’s argument.

Gordon, F., & Arden, D. (2014). The personal era of writing fiction, nonfiction, and everything

else. Indie Presses.

Gordon and Arden discuss how the confessional, or personal, essay has affected

nonfiction, fiction, and other genres of writing. They present two fiction and nonfiction

examples each and discuss the changes in form and diction. Examples of poetry and

feature articles are also provided and examined. Gordon and Arden believe that the rise in

personal and confessional essays affected the formal nature of writing in all genres. They

note that, societally, formality has changed writing and everything else, but there is a

3

large difference in the writing of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and feature writing after the

resurgence of the personal essay. There was also a rise in the personal and sometimes

irrelevant information included in an attempt to get readers to engage with a particular

publication exclusively. The readerships for the publications publishing personal essays

went up, but all of them saw a huge drop off in November 2016, causing a major shift in

the editorial processes of many publishers online or otherwise. Many online publishers

closed. The examples of the different kind of writing will be used to show the differences

in the writing styles. You can also include how you will use the

source in your paper.

Ma, Y., Turoi, M., Cho, J., & Idowu, A. (2015). A study of media and journalism. Journal-

Journal, 7(2), 13–25. https://doi.org/10.559/wjp.v5.i3.2313

This is another neutral source that simply lists certain aspects of journalism that

have changed over time. The authors documented the usage of certain words and types of

writing—essays, interviews, cover stories, and others. In their study, Ma et al. noticed a

spike in personal and confessional essays in journalism around 2008 and a decline 8 years

later at the end of 2016. They speak on the reasons for this particular phenomenon and

include a number of interviews from journalists at two national news organizations and

three newspapers in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. The study managed to present

a balanced set of data that shows both the increase in the websites using the personal

essay boom for profit and authentic websites that were created to combat the rise of

personal essay news. This resource will be used to provide a different perspective on the

negative part of the argument.

4

Potter, H., Anders, D., Smith, C., Hash, M., Toppingham, P., Jacobson, Z., & Kim, S. (2013).

Disconnections in journalism and the personal narrative. PLoS ONE, 5(27).

https://doi.org/10.17871/journal.pone.10770 In an

annotated

bibliography,

you do not

need to cite

paraphrased

information.

It is not a

best practice

to include

directly

quoted

information

in your

annotations.

This resource was a collaboration between 37 authors that cataloged the internet’s

response to news stories from the major news outlets. The authors compared this

information to the responses garnered by the literary sites accepting the occasional new

worthy submission. Many of the websites specializing in showcasing creative writing

genres received an influx of stories that were personal essays but contained news

elements and angles not often taken by the national news outlets. Because of the influx of

this kind of prose, the sites started to publish them; from there they gained traction and

ballooned the viewership of these sites. Potter et al. mention that at the height of this

boom, the actual news content dwindled, and the confessional nature of them became

alternative for the sake of readers and hits. This resource will be used to highlight the

negative impact the confession essay wave had on news in general.

5

Wong, P. S. (2016). Love for the confessional nature. Current Lit, 12(4), 23–27.

https://doi.org/10.3847/co.23.2935

Wong argues that confessing is part of the human condition as much as lying, and

it is cathartic to write in such a manner. She cites the restorative effects of journaling as

indicator of this and provides statistics that show the correlation between journaling and

improved mood. Wong uses this data to stress the importance of the confessional nature

of the more recent personal essays, and denounces critics of it. She does side with the

critics on one point, however. She agrees that there is a place for the confessional or

personal essay. While it is important to confess, Wong mentions that audiences should

not become stand-in priests; too much of the confessional essays can sink a career. This is

what she says happened when the stock in personal essays fell. People were tired of

reading purely personal information and started to switch to more informational reading

material.

Remember that the purpose of the assignment is to summarize the source you have

gathered for your research paper in your own words, so directly quoted material is not

required. You will not need to provide your opinions or personal experience. Present

the information relevant to your research paper topic in 150-200 words.

C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 2 . N Y U P r e s s . A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r

u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .

EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 3/27/2023 1:43 PM via COLUMBIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY AN: 457464 ; Charles J. Ogletree, Jr, Austin Sarat.; Life Without Parole : America's New Death Penalty? Account: s3921192

Life without Parole

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The Charles Hamilton Houston Institu te Series on Race and Justice

The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School seeks to further the vision of racial justice and equality through research, policy analysis, litigation, and scholarship, and will place a special emphasis on the issues of voting rights, the future of affirmative action, the criminal justice system, and related areas.

From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America

Edited by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

When Law Fails: Making Sense of Miscarriages of Justice Edited by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

The Road to Abolition? The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States

Edited by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

Life without Parole: America’s New Death Penalty? Edited by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

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Life without Parole

America’s New Death Penalty?

Edited by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

a N E W Y O R K U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S New York and London

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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org

© 2012 by New York University All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Life without parole : America›s new death penalty? / [edited by] Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Austin Sarat.       p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8147-6247-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-8147-6248-6 (pb) ISBN 978-0-8147-6249-3 (ebook) 1.  Parole — United States. 2.  Life imprisonment — United States. 3.  Capital punishment — United States.  I. Ogletree, Charles J. II. Sarat, Austin. KF9750.L54 2012 364.6’5 — dc23 2012005678

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.

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To Pam, for your enduring support of the many challenging efforts I pursue. You are the greatest. (C.O.)

To Ben, with hope that you will grow up in a more forgiving and humane world. (A.S.)

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| vii

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Lives on the Line: From Capital Punishment 1 to Life without Parole Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

Pa rt I : L i f e w i t h o u t Pa ro l e i n C o n t e xt 1 Mandatory Life and the Death of Equitable Discretion 25 Josh Bowers 2 Death-in-Prison Sentences: Overutilized and Underscrutinized 66 Jessica S. Henry 3 Creating the Permanent Prisoner 96 Sharon Dolovich 4 Life without Parole under Modern Theories of Punishment 138 Paul H. Robinson

Pa rt I I : Pro spe c t s f o r Re f o r m 5 Defending Life 167 I. Bennett Capers 6 Life without Parole and the Hope for Real Sentencing Reform 190 Rachel E. Barkow 7 No Way Out? Life Sentences and the Politics of Penal Reform 227 Marie Gottschalk 8 Dignity and Risk: The Long Road from Graham v. Florida 282 to Abolition of Life without Parole Jonathan Simon

About the Contributors 311

Index 313

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| ix

Acknowledgments

The work contained in this book was first presented at a conference at Amherst College on December 3–4, 2010. We are grateful to our contribu- tors for their fine work and commitment to our project and to Matthew Brew- ster and Heather Richard for their skilled research assistance. The December 2010 conference initiated an annual series of meetings jointly sponsored by Amherst College’s Charles Hamilton Houston Forum on Law and Social Jus- tice and Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. We are grateful for the opportunity to honor Houston for his singular contributions to America’s continuing quest for justice and equality.

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| 1

Introduction

Lives on the Line: From Capital Punishment to Life without Parole

C ha r l e s J . O g l et r e e , J r . , a n d Au s t i n S a r at

Death, in its finality, differs more from life imprisonment than a 100-year prison term differs from one of only a year or two.

—Justice Stewart, Woodson v. North Carolina

Life without parole is a very strange sentence when you think about it. The punishment seems either too much or too little. If a sadistic or extraordinarily cold, callous killer deserves to die, then why not kill him? But if we are going to keep the killer alive when we could otherwise execute him, why strip him of all hope?

—Robert Blecker, quoted in Adam Liptak, “Serving Life with No Chance of Redemption,” New York Times, October 5, 2005

Writing in October 2005, New York Times reporter Adam Liptak observed that “in just the last 30 years, the United States has created something never before seen in its history and unheard of around the globe: a booming population of prisoners whose only way out of prison is likely to be inside a coffin. .  .  . Driven by tougher laws and political pressure on governors and parole boards, thousands of lifers are going into prisons each year, and in many states only a few are ever coming out, even in cases where judges and prosecutors did not intend to put them away forever.”1 In fact, in every decade over the last third of the 20th century, at least eight states joined the list of those authorizing sen- tences of life without parole (LWOP) as part of their criminal code (see figure I.1).

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2 | Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

Fig. I.1. State enactment of LWOP statutes in the United States over time. Source: Steven Mulroy, “Avoiding ‘Death by Default’: Does the Constitution Require a ‘Life without Parole’ Alternative to the Death Penalty?,” 79 Tulane Law Review (2005): 450n. 32.

As a result of these legislative changes, LWOP sentences increased expo- nentially.2 Between 1992 and 2008, the LWOP population in the United States increased 230%,3 so that today more prisoners are serving life terms than ever before (see figure I.2).4

Yet life sentences in general, and LWOP in particular, are by no means new to the American experience. LWOP has been a feature of American penal practice for almost a century. Some of its earliest uses are found in habitual criminal statutes, today known as “three-strike laws.” For example, Ohio’s 1929 habitual criminal statute provided that those sentenced “serve a term of his or her natural life.”5 Such statutes have been a significant source of the recent growth in the LWOP population. Thus, “Alabama’s habitual offender statute caused the ‘life without possibility of parole’ population to increase by an average of 277 persons per year between 1981 and 1986.”6 Table I.1 summarizes current three-strike laws, the felonies they include, and the number of people sentenced to LWOP under them. Only states with three- strike laws that mandate LWOP are represented.

In addition to LWOP’s early, and continuing, association with habitual criminal statutes, it has, since the middle of the 20th century, been used regularly as a sentence in murder cases.7 Indeed one of the most conspicu- ous factors in the growth of LWOP as a sentence in those cases has been an alliance of death penalty abolitionists and conservative, tough-on-crime politicians. For abolitionists, life without parole, as James Liebman notes,

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

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Introduction | 3

Fig. I.2. Growth in LWOP population in the United States, 1984–2008. Sources: Figures from 1984: Donald Macdonald and Leonard Morgenbersser, “Life without Parole Statutes in the United States,” NYS Department of Correctional Services, Division of Program Planning, Research, and Evaluation, 1984; figures from 1992: Kathleen McGuire and Ann L. Pastore, eds., Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1992, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1993; figures from 2003: Marc Mauer, Ryan S. King, and Malcolm C. Young, “The Mean- ing of ‘Life’: Long Prison Sentences in Context,” Sentencing Project, May 2004; figures from 2008: Ashley Nellis and Ryan King, “No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America,” Sentencing Project, 2009.

“has been absolutely crucial to whatever progress has been made against the death penalty. The drop in death sentences [from 320 in 1996 to 125 in 2004] would not have happened without LWOP.”8 Or, as Liptak writes, the growth of LWOP “is in some ways an artifact of the death penalty. Opponents of cap- ital punishment have promoted life sentences as an alternative to execution. And as the nation’s enthusiasm for the death penalty wanes amid restrictive Supreme Court rulings and a spate of death row exonerations, more states are turning to life sentences.”9

For some advocates of LWOP, it is a milder alternative to the unique harshness of capital punishment. As one oft-repeated phrase puts it, “death is different.” For death penalty abolitionists, the availability of LWOP as an alternative sanction for serious crimes can be a powerful tool in arguing against morally fraught state killing. A recent poll found that 70% of Cali- fornians are in favor of the death penalty.10 Offered LWOP as an alternative, however, only 41% favored the death penalty for first-degree murder.11 Strong majoritarian support for capital punishment, this seems to suggest, can be undermined effectively by upholding LWOP as a viable alternative.

For strict retributivists, on the other hand, precisely because “death is dif- ferent,” capital punishment is the sole appropriate response to certain crimes, such as murder.12 However, while justice sometimes requires death, it also

1984 1992 2003 2008

45,000

40,000

35,000

30,000

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

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4 | Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

Ta b l e I . 1 State Three-Strike Laws Requiring Mandatory LWOP

State “Strike Zone” Number of Strikes

Number Sentenced

Georgia Murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, aggravated child molesting, aggravated sodomy, aggravated sexual battery

Two

Any felony* Four 7,631** Indiana Murder, rape, sexual battery with a weapon,

child molesting, arson, robbery, burglary with a weapon or resulting in serious injury, drug dealing

Three 38

Louisiana Murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping, serious drug offenses, serious felony offenses,

Three N/A

Any four felony convictions with at least one on the above list

Four

Maryland Murder, rape, robbery, first- or second-degree sexual offense, arson, burglary, kidnapping, carjacking, manslaughter, use of firearm in felony, assault with intent to murder, rape, rob, or commit sexual offense; separate prison terms required for each offense

Four 330

Montana Deliberate homicide, aggravated kidnapping, sexual intercourse without consent, ritual abuse of a minor

Two 0

Mitigated deliberate homicide, aggravated assault, kidnapping, robbery

Three

New Jersey Murder, robbery, carjacking Three 10 North Carolina

47 violent felonies; separate indictment and finding that offender is “violent habitual offender”

Three 22

South Carolina

Murder, voluntary manslaughter, homicide by child abuse, rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, drug trafficking, embezzlement, bribery, certain accessory and attempted offenses

Two 14

Tennessee Murder, aggravated kidnapping, robbery, arson, rape, rape of child; prior prison term required

Two 14

Same as above, plus rape, aggravated sexual bat- tery; separate prison terms required

Three

Utah Any first- or second-degree felony Three N/A

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Introduction | 5

State “Strike Zone” Number of Strikes

Number Sentenced

Virginia Murder, kidnapping, robbery, carjacking, sexual assault, conspiracy with these crimes

Three 328

Washington Murder, manslaughter, rape, child molesta- tion, robbery, aggravated assault, explosion with threat to humans, extortion, kidnapping, vehicular assault, arson, attempted arson, bur- glary, any felony with deadly weapon, treason, prompting prostitution, leading organized crime

Three 209

Wisconsin Murder, manslaughter, vehicular homicide, aggravated battery, abuse of children, robbery, sexual assault, taking hostages, kidnapping, arson, burglary

Three 9

Federal government

Murder, voluntary manslaughter, assault with intent to commit murder or rape, robbery, aggravated sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact, kidnapping, aircraft piracy, carjacking, extor- tion, arson, firearms use, serious drug crimes

Three 35

* In Georgia, any four felonies mandate a maximum sentence, not necessarily LWOP. ** This statistic includes all those sentences in the scheme described just above; thus,

the true LWOP is not known for certain. All sentence statistics as of 2004. Source: Jennifer Walsh, Three Strikes Laws (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007), 120.

demands gradations of punishment. “If we more nearly matched crime with punishment,” argues noted retributivist Robert Blecker, “we would design a pain-free death for those who killed their victims painlessly, while reserving a painful death for those who sadistically tortured their victims.”13 Collapsing these fine gradations of punishment into a single punishment, either death or life without parole, would, in this line of thinking, be a betrayal of justice.

While conservative support for LWOP seems consistent with a tough-on- crime politics,14 support for LWOP among abolitionists requires some expla- nation. Part of their rationale for advocating LWOP rested on public opinion polls that showed support for capital punishment to be based, in part, on worries about the premature parole of violent felons. And what is true for the general public also seems to be true for jurors. John Blume et al., reporting on their research on capital juries, note that “future dangerousness is on the

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6 | Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat

minds of most capital jurors, and is thus ‘at issue’ in virtually all capital tri- als, no matter what the prosecution says or does not say.”15 Between 53% and 66% of jurors surveyed stated that the deliberations focused a “fair amount” on the issue of future dangerousness. Additionally, among those surveyed from cases in which the prosecution did not put future dangerousness at issue, 77% reported that personal concern that the defendant might again be a harm to society was important in how they voted.16

Abolitionists support LWOP to allay those worries. Some abolitionists have even gone so far as to argue that not allowing juries to consider LWOP in the sentencing phase of capital trials is unconstitutional.17 They claim that “the absence of an LWOP option causes the death penalty to be imposed as an expedient rather than as the product of a reasoned judgment that death is the appropriate punishment.”18 They believe that without an LWOP option jurors are offered a forced choice, a choice with a bias toward death. This

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