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Rituals of Death: Capital Punishment in America

July 9, 2011

Stuart Banner is Professor of Law at Washington University and a former Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

State execution in America has a history so extensive that it actually precedes the American revolution. The colonies which were more lenient than Britain in much of their legal codes tended to make far greater use of capital punishment. It was seen as a way of demonstrating the costs of depraved behavior. Since humans were viewed as naturally wicked, such "examples" were important. As time passed, controversy grew over the very existence of the death penalty and its somewhat random application. Technology--gas, electric chairs, lethal injection--also added to the debate. Stuart Banner explains this history.

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Stuart Banner

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