Hong Lu is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has authored a book Punishment: A Comparative Historical Perspective (with Terance D. Miethe) and numerous articles in the areas of criminology and comparative legal studies appearing in journals including Law & Society Review and British Journal of Criminology.

Terance D. Miethe is a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the author of 8 books and over 50 research articles in the areas of criminology and sociology. His most recent books include Rethinking Homicide: Exploring the Structure and Process Underlying Deadly Situations (with Wendy Regoeczi), Punishment: A Comparative Historical Perspective (with Hong Lu), and Fight Time: The Rules and Routines in Interpersonal Violence (with Gini Deibert).

1. Introduction 2. Death Penalty as Law and Punishment 3. Historical and Legal Development of the Death Penalty 4. Contemporary Substantive and Procedural Criminal Law on the Death Penalty 5. The Application of the Death Penalty 6. The Process of Death Sentence and Execution 7. Reforms and the Future Prospects of the Death Penalty. Appendix: Judicial Judgment of Selected Capital Cases