NCJ Number
155518
Journal
San Diego Justice Journal Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: (Winter 1995) Pages: 177-206
Date Published
1995
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This article uses the image of lynchings of Black Americans in the U.S. South to discuss the issues of the disproportionate representation of minorities, particularly Blacks, in the country's death rows, and how various States choose the mode of execution they use.
Abstract
To date, challenges to the death penalty have, for the most part, failed to dispute any particular form of execution. This article discusses the limited challenges that have been posed to execution methods and the development of a constitutional standard based on Eighth Amendment guarantees. The article explores the judicial struggle to articulate the role of historical association in the analysis of a mode of punishment. The second section of the article criticizes the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Campbell v. Wood upholding execution by hanging. The final section examines the intimate psychological association between the State-sponsored practice of hanging and the experience of lynching, concluding that execution by hanging is a vicious indignity. 132 notes