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About 11% of death-sentenced prisoners executed in the United States hastened executions by abandoning their appeals. How do these prisoners persuade courts to allow them to abandon their appeals? Further, how do legal structures and processes organize these explanations, and what do they conceal? An analysis of Texas cases suggests that prisoners marshal explanations for their desires to hasten execution that echo prevailing cultural beliefs about punishment and the death penalty. The coherence of these accounts is amplified by a non-adversarial, unreliable legal process. This article contributes to our understanding of legal narratives, and expands their analysis to include not only hegemonic stories and legal rules, but also the legal process that generates them.
Charles Rumbaugh, who had a history of psychiatric hospitalization and suicide attempts, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. In an Amarillo, Texas federal district court hearing on whether he was sufficiently mentally competent to drop his legal appeals in order to expedite his execution, Rumbaugh testified:
All I really wanted to say is that it doesn't matter to me; that I've already picked my own executioner and I'll just make them kill me. If they don't want to do it . . . if they don't want to take me down there and execute me, I'll make them shoot me.
I think I'll make them shoot me right now. (Rumbaugh v. Procunier 1985: 397)
At this point, Rumbaugh charged a deputy U.S. Marshal, who duly shot him. Rumbaugh survived, leaving the court to decide whether to permit Rumbaugh to hasten execution. The court did, and Rumbaugh was subsequently executed.
About 11% of death-sentenced prisoners executed in the United States hastened their own executions by abandoning their appeals (Death Penalty Information Center 2012). This article examines how legal proceedings in these cases can serve as a forum in which social deviance (seeking execution) is neutralized by stock penal narratives. Prisoners marshal explanations that resonate with broader cultural beliefs about the death penalty, prison, and the legal system. They thereby deflect other interpretations, such as "suicide by cop," that are socially deviant, if apparently legally acceptable under Rumbaugh.
Sociolegal studies of courtroom narrative have generally analyzed verbal exchanges (Donovan and Barnes-Brus 2011), the role of larger cultural scripts (Donovan...