Cruel and Unusual
Cruel and Unusual

Author: Michael Meltsner

Publisher: Quid Pro Books

Published: 2011-07-23

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1610270975

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The true and gripping account of the nine-year struggle by a small band of lawyers to abolish the death penalty in the United States. Its new edition features a 2011 Foreword by death-penalty author Evan Mandery of CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, as well as a new Preface by the author.The mission, plotted out over lunch in New York's Central Park in the early 1960s, seemed as impossible as going to the moon: abolish capital punishment in every state. The approach would fight on multiple fronts, with multiple strategies. The people would be dedicated, bright, unsure, unpopular, and fascinating. This is their story: not only the cases and the arguments before courts, the death row inmates and their victims, the judges and politicians urging law and order, this is the true account of the real-life lawyers from the inside. The United States indeed went to the moon, and a few years later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. The victory was long-sought and sweet, and the pages of this book vividly let the reader live the struggle and the victory. And while the abolition eventually became as impermanent as the nation's presence on the moon, these dedicated attorneys certainly made a difference. This is their tale.As Evan Mandery writes in his new Foreword, "In these pages, Meltsner lays bare every aspect of his and his colleaguesi thinking. You will read how they handicapped their chances, which arguments they thought would work (you may be surprised), and what they thought of the Supreme Court justices who would decide the crucial cases. You will come to understand what they perceived to be the basis for support for the death penalty, and, with Meltsner's unflinching honesty, what they perceived to be the inconsistencies in their position."Mandery concludes: "It is my odd lot in life to have read almost every major book ever written about the death penalty in America. This is the best and the most important. Every serious scholar who wants to advance an argument about capital punishment in the United States--whether it is abolitionist or in favor of the death penalty, or merely a tactical assessment--cites this book. It is open and supremely accessible." And the author's "constitutional vision was years ahead of its time. His book is timeless." Part of the Legal History and Biography Series from Quid Pro Books, the new ebook editions feature embedded pagination from previous editions (consistent with the new paperback edition as well, allowing continuity in all formats), active TOC and endnotes, and quality digital formatting.

Cruel & Unusual
Cruel & Unusual

Author: John D. Bessler

Publisher: UPNE

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 1555537170

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This indispensable history of the Eighth Amendment and the founders' views of capital punishment is also a passionate call for the abolition of the death penalty based on the notion of cruel and unusual punishment

Courting Death
Courting Death

Author: Carol S. Steiker

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2016-11-07

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0674737423

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Before constitutional regulation -- The Supreme Court steps in -- The invisibility of race in the constitutional revolution -- Between the Supreme Court and the states -- The failures of regulation -- An unsustainable system? -- Recurring patterns in constitutional regulation -- The future of the American death penalty -- Life after death

Facing the Death Penalty
Facing the Death Penalty

Author: Michael Radelet

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 2011-02-07

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1439907803

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An in-depth examination of what life under a sentence of death is like.

The Death Penalty as Cruel Treatment and Torture
The Death Penalty as Cruel Treatment and Torture

Author: William Schabas

Publisher: UPNE

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 9781555532680

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ...said Mr. Fogg. "Well, your honor," replied the pilot, " I can risk neither my men, nor myself, nor yourself, in so long a voyage on a boat of scarcely twenty tons, at this time of the year. Besides, we would not arrive in time, for it is sixteen hundred and fifty miles from Hong Kong to Yokohama." "Only sixteen hundred," said Mr. Fogg. "It is the same thing." Fix took a good long breath. " But," added the pilot, " there might perhaps be a means to arrange it otherwise." Fix did not breathe any more. "How?" asked Phileas Fogg. " By going to Nagasaki, the southern extremity of Japan, eleven hundred miles, or only to Shanghai, eight Imndred miles from Hong Kong. In this last journey, we wold not be at any distance from the Chinese coast, which v uld be a great advantage, all the more so that the currents run to the north." "Pilot," replied Phileas Fogg, "I must lake the American mail steamer at Yokohama, and not at Shanghai or Nagasaki." "Why not? "replied the pilot " The San Francisco stewnet does not start from Yokohama. She stops there and at Nagasaki, but her port of departure is Shanghai." You are certain of what you are saying? " "Certain." "And when does the steamer leave Shanghai? "On the llth, atseven oclock in the evening. We have then four days before us. Four days, that is ninety-six hours, and with an average of eight knots an hour, if we have good luck, if the wind keeps to the southeast, if the sea is calm, we can make the eight hundred miles which separate us from Shanghai." "And you can leave--" " la an hour, time enough to buy my provisions and hoist sail." " It is a bargain--you are the master of the boat? " " Yes, John Bunsby, master of the Tankadere." " Do you wish some earnest money? " " If it does not inconvenience...

The Death Penalty as Torture
The Death Penalty as Torture

Author: John D. Bessler

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781611639261

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The Death Penalty as Torture: From the Dark Ages to Abolition was named a Bronze Medalist in the World History category of the Independent Publisher Book Awards and a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards (2018). During the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, Europe's monarchs often resorted to torture and executions. The pain inflicted by instruments of torture--from the thumbscrew and the rack to the Inquisition's tools of torment--was eclipsed only by horrific methods of execution, from breaking on the wheel and crucifixion to drawing and quartering and burning at the stake. The English "Bloody Code" made more than 200 crimes punishable by death, and judicial torture--expressly authorized by law and used to extract confessions--permeated continental European legal systems. Judges regularly imposed death sentences and other harsh corporal punishments, from the stocks and the pillory, to branding and ear cropping, to lashes at public whipping posts. In the Enlightenment, jurists and writers questioned the efficacy of torture and capital punishment. In 1764, the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria--the father of the world's anti-death penalty movement--condemned both practices. And Montesquieu, like Beccaria and others, concluded that any punishment that goes beyond absolute necessity is tyrannical. Traditionally, torture and executions have been viewed in separate legal silos, with countries renouncing acts of torture while simultaneously using capital punishment. The UN Convention Against Torture strictly prohibits physical or psychological torture; not even war or threat of war can be invoked to justify it. But under the guise of "lawful sanctions," some countries continue to carry out executions even though they bear the indicia of torture. In The Death Penalty as Torture, Prof. John Bessler argues that death sentences and executions are medieval relics. In a world in which "mock" or simulated executions, as well as a host of other non-lethal acts, are already considered to be torturous, he contends that death sentences and executions should be classified under the rubric of torture. Unlike in the Middle Ages, penitentiaries--one of the products of the Enlightenment--now exist throughout the globe to house violent offenders. With the rise of life without parole sentences, and with more than four of five nations no longer using executions, The Death Penalty as Torture calls for the recognition of a peremptory, international law norm against the death penalty's use.

Let the Lord Sort Them
Let the Lord Sort Them

Author: Maurice Chammah

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2021-01-26

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1524760277

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NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America “If you’re one of those people who despair that nothing changes, and dream that something can, this is a story of how it does.”—Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times Book Review WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment. Then, amid a larger wave of criminal justice reform, came the death penalty’s decline, a trend so durable that even in Texas the punishment appears again close to extinction. In Let the Lord Sort Them, Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched. We meet Elsa Alcala, the orphaned daughter of a Mexican American family who found her calling as a prosecutor in the nation’s death penalty capital, before becoming a judge on the state’s highest court. We meet Danalynn Recer, a lawyer who became obsessively devoted to unearthing the life stories of men who committed terrible crimes, and fought for mercy in courtrooms across the state. We meet death row prisoners—many of them once-famous figures like Henry Lee Lucas, Gary Graham, and Karla Faye Tucker—along with their families and the families of their victims. And we meet the executioners, who struggle openly with what society has asked them to do. In tracing these interconnected lives against the rise of mass incarceration in Texas and the country as a whole, Chammah explores what the persistence of the death penalty tells us about forgiveness and retribution, fairness and justice, history and myth. Written with intimacy and grace, Let the Lord Sort Them is the definitive portrait of a particularly American institution.

United States Code
United States Code

Author: United States

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 1506

ISBN-13:

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"The United States Code is the official codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States of America. The Code was first published in 1926, and a new edition of the code has been published every six years since 1934. The 2012 edition of the Code incorporates laws enacted through the One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, the last of which was signed by the President on January 15, 2013. It does not include laws of the One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, enacted between January 2, 2013, the date it convened, and January 15, 2013. By statutory authority this edition may be cited "U.S.C. 2012 ed." As adopted in 1926, the Code established prima facie the general and permanent laws of the United States. The underlying statutes reprinted in the Code remained in effect and controlled over the Code in case of any discrepancy. In 1947, Congress began enacting individual titles of the Code into positive law. When a title is enacted into positive law, the underlying statutes are repealed and the title then becomes legal evidence of the law. Currently, 26 of the 51 titles in the Code have been so enacted. These are identified in the table of titles near the beginning of each volume. The Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives continues to prepare legislation pursuant to 2 U.S.C. 285b to enact the remainder of the Code, on a title-by-title basis, into positive law. The 2012 edition of the Code was prepared and published under the supervision of Ralph V. Seep, Law Revision Counsel. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the contributions by all who helped in this work, particularly the staffs of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and the Government Printing Office"--Preface.

DeathQuest
DeathQuest

Author: Robert M. Bohm

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2011-08-15

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 1317522915

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This fourth edition of the first true textbook on the death penalty engages the reader with a full account of the arguments and issues surrounding capital punishment. The book begins with the history of the death penalty from colonial to modern times, and then examines the moral and legal arguments for and against capital punishment. It also provides an overview of major Supreme Court decisions and describes the legal process behind the death penalty. In addressing these issues, the author reviews recent developments in death penalty law and procedure, including ramifications of newer case law, such as that regarding using lethal injection as a method of execution. The author’s motivation has been to understand what motivates the "deathquest" of the American people, leading a large percentage of the public to support the death penalty. The book will educate readers so that whatever their death penalty opinions are, they are informed ones.