BOOKS — Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South

In her book, “Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South,” University of Memphis professor Margaret Vandiver explores the complex relationship between these two forms of punishment and challenges the assumption that executions consistently grew out of - and replaced - lynchings. Vandiver’s book examines lynchings and legal executions in three culturally and geographically distinct southern regions. First she researched rural northwest Tennessee, where lynchings outnumbered executions by 11 to one and many African Americans were lynched for racial caste offenses rather than for actual crimes. Then she examined Shelby County, Tennessee, including the city of Memphis, where more men were legally executed than lynched. Last, she researched Marion County, Florida, where she discovered a firmly entrenched tradition of lynching for sexual assault that ended in the 1930s with three legal death sentences in quick succession. Based on her findings, Vandiver writes about the ways that legal and extralegal processes imitated, influenced, and differed from each other in these regions. Then, using a series of case studies, she identifies parallels between the mock trials that were held by lynch mobs and the legal trials that were rushed through the courts and followed by quick executions. Although the emphasis is on the historical use of these practices, the author argues that modern death sentences, like lynchings of the past, continue to be influenced by factors of race and place, and that death sentencing is comparably erratic. (Rutgers University Press, 2006). See Books.