Menu
Idea

capital punishment

87
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Protestors standing against the death penalty.

An Exercise in Political Imagination: Debating William F. Buckley

Stephen Bright and Bryan Stevenson defended the abolition of capital punishment at a moment when political support for that movement reached its nadir.
by Robert L. Tsai via Liberal Currents on October 31, 2024
White men strapping a Black man into an electric chair.
original

Matters of Life and Death

Systemic racism and capital punishment have long been intertwined in Virginia, the South, and the nation.
by Janis Parker on July 10, 2024
The 19-year-old Indian elephant, Fritz-Frederic, favorite of the children of Paris, was put to death after he had gone mad for several days, c. 1910.

Elephant Executions

At the height of circus animal acts in the late nineteenth century, animals who killed their captors might be publicly executed for their “crimes.”
by Amy Louise Wood, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on May 7, 2024
Old gas chamber, with two chairs

Execution By Gas has a Brutal 100-Year History. Now it’s Back.

An Alabama man faces execution by nitrogen gas—the first U.S. execution by gas in a quarter-century, 100 years after the practice began.
by Randy Dotinga via Retropolis on January 24, 2024

Louis Congo: Ex-Slave and Executioner of Louisiana

Although freed from slavery, Louis Congo's job as public executioner ensured him a life as a pawn of French officials and retaliation from those he disciplined.
by Menika Dirkson via Black Perspectives on January 25, 2023
Wilbert Lee Evans (left) and Alton Waye (right).

NPR Uncovered Secret Execution Tapes From Virginia. More Remain Hidden.

Four tapes mysteriously donated reveal uncertainty within the death chamber—and indicate the prison neglected to record evidence during an execution gone wrong.
by Chiara Eisner via NPR on January 19, 2023
Execution Chamber with restraining bed
partner

50 Years Ago, a SCOTUS Decision Placed a Moratorium on Executions. It's Time to Revive it

Fifty years ago in 1972, as spring faded and summer arrived in late June, America (and the world) was a vastly different place.
by Rick Halperin via HNN on June 28, 2022
Photo illustration of a button causing death courtesy of MIT Press Reader.

How Americans Got Comfortable With Killing at the Push of a Button

For years, the idea seemed immoral and dangerous.
by Rachel Plotnick via Slate on June 20, 2022

The Lesbian As Villain or Victim

In Oregon in the 1960s, the debate over capital punishment hinged on shifting interpretations of the gendered female body.
by Matthew Wills, Lauren Gutterman via JSTOR Daily on June 19, 2022
Drawing of the hanging of a woman accused of witchcraft.

The Historical Truth About Women Burned at the Stake in America? Most Were Black.

Most Americans probably don’t know this piece of Black history. But they should.
by Kali Nicole Gross via Washington Post on February 25, 2022
The “Martinsville Seven,” a group of seven Black men executed in Virginia, 1951.

A Virginia the Martinsville Seven Could Not Have Imagined

Governor Ralph Northam pardoned seven young Black men put to death in 1951— a step forward in addressing Virginia's imperfect criminal justice system.
by Bob Lewis via Virginia Mercury on September 7, 2021
Two images of the same incarcerated man, one from 1979, the other from 2015.

The Case That Made Texas the Death Penalty Capital

In an excerpt from his new book, ‘Let the Lord Sort Them,’ Maurice Chammah explains where a 1970s legal team fighting the death penalty went wrong.
by Maurice Chammah via The Marshall Project on January 26, 2021
A noose hanging in front of the Capitol.

Why America Loves the Death Penalty

A new book frames this country’s tendency toward state-sanctioned murder as a unique cultural inheritance.
by Josephine Livingstone via The New Republic on January 11, 2021

The ‘Death Penalty’s Dred Scott’ Lives On

In 1987, the Supreme Court came within one vote of eliminating capital punishment in Georgia because of of racial disparities.
by Annika Neklason via The Atlantic on June 14, 2019

Cruel and Usual

Proponents believe lethal injection to be a medical marvel, but in reality it’s junk science.
by Jackie Roche, Liliana Segura via The Nib on October 1, 2018

A Presumption of Guilt

Capital punishment and the legacy of terror lynching in the American South.
by Bryan Stevenson via New York Review of Books on July 13, 2017
Members of the 1976 United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Warren Burger, center.

It’s Been 40 Years Since the Supreme Court Tried to Fix the Death Penalty— Here’s How It Failed

A close look at the grand compromise of 1976.
by Evan Mandery via The Marshall Project on March 30, 2016
A photograph of Death Row within a prison.

How and Why Public Opinion on the Death Penalty Changed

A look at the American public's ambivalent opinion of the death penalty.
by Angela Chen, Hans Zeisel, Alec M. Gallup via JSTOR Daily on October 12, 2015

Executing 'Idiots'

Would the Founders have protected people we execute now?
by Michael Clemente via The Marshall Project on July 27, 2015

On the Death Sentence

David Garland makes a powerful argument that will persuade many readers that the death penalty is unwise and unjustified.
by John Paul Stevens via New York Review of Books on December 23, 2010
Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson: A Vote for Cutting Off Your Nose

To reduce Virginia’s use of the death penalty, Thomas Jefferson proposed using permanent disfigurement as a punishment for rape, polygamy, and sodomy.
by Matthew Wills, Emily Cock via JSTOR Daily on June 4, 2025
Lethal injection table.
partner

Lethal Injection Is Not Based on Science

The history of the three-drug combo used in death-penalty executions. 
by Corinna Barrett Lain via HNN on April 29, 2025
Mugshots of Ethel Rosenberg in 1951.

President Biden Should Pardon Ethel Rosenberg

A newly released classified document shows that the National Security Agency knew Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy—and that the government executed her anyway.
by Phillip Deery via The Nation on January 2, 2025
Strom Thurmond speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of Ed Carnes' confirmation to the bench.

The Fight for Justice Starts with Blocking Judges Who Are “Tough on Crime”

The story of how Ed Carnes became a judge offers crucial lessons for those who hope to unwind the policies of mass incarceration.
by Robert L. Tsai via Public Books on November 13, 2024
Painting of enslaved people waiting to be sold.

Enslaved Women’s Resistance to Slavery and Gendered Violence

A new book offers a fresh perspective on the resistance of enslaved women and their interactions with the law.
by Sean Gallagher via Black Perspectives on September 5, 2024
Anti-death penalty protesters standing outside the Supreme Court.

The Hollowing of the Eighth Amendment

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority has been quietly rolling back a longstanding consensus over cruel and unusual punishment.
by Duncan Hosie via New York Review of Books on June 18, 2024
Modoc leader Captain Jack.

150 Years Ago, the US Military Executed Modoc War Leaders in Fort Klamath, Oregon

A small band of Modoc warriors held off hundreds of U.S. soldiers in California. Ultimately, the conflict left the Modoc leaders dead and the tribe divided.
by Kami Horton via Oregon Public Broadcasting on October 3, 2023
Police with face shields in street

Why Aren’t Cops Held to Account?

Decades of Supreme Court decisions have converted qualified immunity from a commonsense rule into a powerful doctrine that deprives people injured by police misconduct of recourse.
by Linda Greenhouse via New York Review of Books on August 30, 2023
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg leaving the courthouse in a prison van, 1951.

Not How He Wanted to Be Remembered

Two decades passed before the ghosts of the Rosenbergs came back to haunt Irving Kaufman, the judge who sentenced them to death.
by Linda Greenhouse via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2023
Two unnamed Black officers in the Union Army.

Richard Wright’s Civil War Cipher

Archival records of Black southerners' military desertion tribunals can be read as a distinct form of political action.
by Jonathan Lande via Process: A Blog for American History on February 14, 2023
View More
30 of
87

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History