Friday, May 8, 2015

Imprisoned by the Past: Warren McCleskey and the American Death Penalty

Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier (CUNY School of Law). Imprisoned by the Past (Oxford University Press, 2015).


"McCleskey's criminal law case resulted in one of the most important Supreme Court cases in U.S. legal history, where the Court confronted evidence of racial discrimination in the administration of capital punishment. The case marks the last that the Supreme Court realistically might have held that capital punishment violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As such, the constitutional law case also created a turning point in the death penalty debate in the country. The book connects McCleskey's case
as well as his life and crimeto the issues that have haunted the American death penalty debate since the first executions by early settlers and that still affect the legal system today."
—Publisher's description