“Wild Justice”: A History of the Death Penalty in America
Last month, NPR’s Fresh Air featured an interview with Evan Mandery, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former capital defense attorney, about his new book–A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America. The interview reflected the book’s title, explaining the strange and fascinating history of the death penalty in the United States. From backroom Supreme Court deals to Mandery’s argument that the death penalty is random and lacks deterrent value, this interview is worth a listen for anyone interested in the death penalty or criminal law.
Here is the introduction to the interview:
In the mid-1970s, Arkansas’ electric chair was being used by the prison barber to cut hair, and the execution chamber in New Hampshire was being used to store vegetables. That’s because in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court shocked the nation by striking down Georgia’s death penalty law, effectively ending executions in the United States. But the decision provoked a strong backlash among those who favored the death penalty, and within four years the high court reversed course and issued a set of rulings that would permit the resumption of executions.
Evan Mandery, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former capital defense attorney, has written a new account of the tumultuous legal and political battles over the death penalty. Mandery is sympathetic to those who tried to outlaw capital punishment, but his account focuses on attorneys for both sides in the battle, as well as the views and deliberations of the justices who decided the cases. His book is called A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America.
