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Awards
Overview"The conventional wisdom is that the founders were avid death penalty supporters. In this fascinating and insightful examination of America's Eighth Amendment, law professor John D. Bessler explodes this myth and shows the founders' conflicting and ambivalent views on capital punishment. Cruel and Unusual 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. While shedding important new light on the U.S. Constitution's ""cruel and unusual punishments"" clause, Bessler explores the influence of Cesare Beccaria's 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. After critiquing the U.S. Supreme Court's existing case law, this essential volume argues that America's death penalty-a vestige of a bygone era in which ear cropping and other gruesome corporal punishments were thought acceptable-should be declared unconstitutional." Full Product DetailsAuthor: John D. BesslerPublisher: Northeastern University Press Imprint: Northeastern University Press Dimensions: Width: 15.60cm , Height: 4.10cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.455kg ISBN: 9781555537166ISBN 10: 1555537162 Pages: 464 Publication Date: 09 February 2012 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: No Longer Our Product Availability: Awaiting stock  The supplier is currently out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out for you. Table of ContentsReviews[E]xcellent history. . . . So how does a society that shed many of its old cruelties -- slavery, floggings, lynchings, executions of the criminally insane -- still cling to the ultimate punishment? This is what Mr. Bessler's book seeks to answer, and in so doing, it argues persuasively that the death penalty, infested with randomness and bias, is a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. --Baltimore Sun Bessler offers a thought-provoking examination of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment in the ongoing debate over the constitutionality of capital punishment. . . . As a starting point for reasoned discourse, this is a remarkably thorough, compelling achievement. . . . Highly recommended. --Choice Cruel and Unusual provides a wealth of interesting information. --Journal of American History Bessler sees three paths to abolition: legislative repeal, judicial abolition, and disuse, and maintains that all three are presently at work, and that it is just a matter of time before the United States decides, like Justice Harry Blackmun did prior to his retire- ment from the Supreme Court, that it shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death. --Political Science Quarterly Bessler sees three paths to abolition: legislative repeal, judicial abolition, and disuse, and maintains that all three are presently at work, and that it is just a matter of time before the United States decides, like Justice Harry Blackmun did prior to his retire- ment from the Supreme Court, that it shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death. Political Science Quarterly Bessler sees three paths to abolition: legislative repeal, judicial abolition, and disuse, and maintains that all three are presently at work, and that it is just a matter of time before the United States decides, like Justice Harry Blackmun did prior to his retire- ment from the Supreme Court, that it shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death. --Political Science Quarterly Bessler sees three paths to abolition: legislative repeal, judicial abolition, and disuse, and maintains that all three are presently at work, and that it is just a matter of time before the United States decides, like Justice Harry Blackmun did prior to his retire- ment from the Supreme Court, that it shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death. Political Science Quarterly Bessler offers a thought-provoking examination of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment in the ongoing debate over the constitutionality of capital punishment. . . . As a starting point for reasoned discourse, this is a remarkably thorough, compelling achievement. . . . Highly recommended. -- Choice Cruel and Unusual provides a wealth of interesting information. -- Journal of American History Bessler sees three paths to abolition: legislative repeal, judicial abolition, and disuse, and maintains that all three are presently at work, and that it is just a matter of time before the United States decides, like Justice Harry Blackmun did prior to his retire- ment from the Supreme Court, that it shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death. -- Political Science Quarterly [E]xcellent history. . . . So how does a society that shed many of its old cruelties -- slavery, floggings, lynchings, executions of the criminally insane -- still cling to the ultimate punishment? This is what Mr. Bessler's book seeks to answer, and in so doing, it argues persuasively that the death penalty, infested with randomness and bias, is a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments.-- Baltimore Sun Bessler offers a thought-provoking examination of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment in the ongoing debate over the constitutionality of capital punishment. . . . As a starting point for reasoned discourse, this is a remarkably thorough, compelling achievement. . . . Highly recommended. --Choice Author InformationJOHN D. BESSLER is an associate professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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