Cruel & Unusual

by Bessler, John D.

• ISBN13: 9781555537166
• ISBN10: 1555537162
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-01-10
• Publisher: Northeastern Univ Pr

Summary

The conventional wisdom is that the Founders were avid death penalty supporters. In his new book, law professor John D. Bessler exposes that myth and shows the Founders' conflicting and ambivalent views on capital punishment. He takes the reader back in time to show how the indiscriminate use of executions gave way to a more enlightened approach--one that has been evolving ever since. He explores the influence of Cesare Beccaria's influential essay, On Crimes and Punishments, on the Founders' views, and the transformative properties of the Fourteenth Amendment, which made the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, and he sheds important new light on the U.S. Constitution's "cruel and unusual punishments" clause. After critiquing the U.S. Supreme Court's existing case law, the author argues that America's death penalty--a vestige of a bygone era in which ear cropping and other corporal punishments were once thought acceptable--should be declared unconstitutional.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
In Cold Blood	p. 12
On Crimes and Punishments	p. 31
The Abolitionists	p. 66
America's Founding Fathers	p. 97
The Eighth Amendment	p. 162
Capital Punishment in America	p. 222
The Road to Abolition	p. 265
Conclusion	p. 339
Notes	p. 349
Bibliography	p. 405
Index	p. 417
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