BOOKS: ​“Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment”

A forth­com­ing book by John D. Bessler, ​“Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment,” dis­cuss­es the his­to­ry of the Eighth Amendment and the coun­try’s founders’ views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. While the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom is that the founders were avid death penal­ty sup­port­ers, Bessler’s exam­i­na­tion shows they had con­flict­ing and ambiva­lent views on the sub­ject. Bessler ana­lyzes the U.S. Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment case law and argues that the death penal­ty should prob­a­bly be held uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Sister Helen Prejean, not­ed activist and author of Dead Man Walking, described Bessler’s book as: ​“A sear­ing indict­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, this pio­neer­ing his­to­ry of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause is des­tined to reframe America’s death penal­ty debate. As a defin­i­tive account of the Eighth Amendment’s ori­gins and the Founding Fathers’ own ambiva­lent views on exe­cu­tions, it will for­ev­er change our per­cep­tions of cru­el­ty and penal reform in the found­ing era.” John Bessler is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and an adjunct pro­fes­sor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

(J. Bessler, ​“Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment,” Northeastern University Press, forth­com­ing January 2012). The book can be pre-ordered on Amazon​.com. See U.S. Supreme Court. Read more Books on the death penalty.