Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders Eighth Amendment

About this book

The conventional wisdom is that the founders were avid death penalty supporters. In this fascinating and insightful examination of Americas 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 approachone that has been evolving ever since. While shedding important new light on the U.S. Constitutions cruel and unusual punishments clause Bessler explores the influence of Cesare Beccarias 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 Courts existing case law this essential volume argues that Americas death penaltya vestige of a bygone era in which ear cropping and other gruesome corporal punishments were thought acceptableshould be declared unconstitutional.