A Wild Justice The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America

by Mandery, Evan J.

• ISBN13: 9780393239584
• ISBN10: 0393239586
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-08-19
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

For two hundred years, the constitutionality of capital punishment had been axiomatic. But in 1962, the largely forgotten Justice Arthur Goldberg and his clerk, Alan Dershowitz, dared to suggest otherwise, launching an underfunded band of civil rights attorneys on a quixotic crusade. In 1972, in a most unlikely victory, the Supreme Court struck down Georgia's death penalty law, and legal experts hailed the end of executions in America. The response in most states was mandatory sentencing. And four years later, after a brilliant oral argument by Robert Bork, the Supreme Court ended up reversing itself. Drawing on interviews with law clerks and litigators, and on four years of archival research, A Wild Justice is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the Court, the justices, and the political complexities of the most racially charged and morally vexing issue of our time-one that offers extraordinary insights into America itself.