Road to Abolition?

Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. (Editor) Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. is the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. He is the author of All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education (WW Norton and Company, 2004) and Co-Author of From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America.Austin Sarat (Editor) Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He has written or edited dozens of books, including Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution, Law's Infamy: Understanding the Canon of Bad Law, and Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities and Cause Lawyering and the State in a Global Era, which won the 2004 Reginald Heber Smith Book Award.

• Acknowledgments IntroductionCharles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin SaratPart I 1 The Executioner's Waning Defenses Michael L. Radelet 2 Blinded by Science on the Road to Abolition? Simon A. Cole and Jay D. Aronson 3 Abolition in the United States by 2050: On Political Capital and Ordinary Acts of ResistanceBernard E. Harcourt 4 The Beginning of the End? Carol S. Steiker and Jordan M. Steiker 5 Rocked but Still Rolling: The Enduring Institution of Capital Punishment in Historical and Comparative PerspectiveMichael McCann and David T. JohnsonPart II 6 For Execution Methods Challenges, the Road to Abolition Is Paved with ParadoxDeborah W. Denno 7 Perfect Execution: Abolitionism and the Paradox of Lethal InjectionTimothy V. Kaufman-Osborn 8 "No Improvement over Electrocution or Even a Bullet": Lethal Injection and the Meaning of Speed and Reliability in the Modern Execution ProcessJurgen MartschukatPart III 9 Torture, War, and Capital Punishment: Linkages and Missed ConnectionsRobin Wagner-Pacifici 10 Making Difference: Modernity and the Political Formations of Death Peter FitzpatrickAbout the ContributorsIndex

A thoughtful discussion that is timely, well written, and deeply relevant to current public policy and law. (Library Journal) The essays, organized into three sections, are as compelling in their analyses as those in the first two collections. (Choice) Road to Abolition? makes a convincing case that there is a spreading consensus, both internationally and on our own soil, that the death penalty is an outmoded and barbaric practice. - Ben Pesta (The Daily Journal Corporation) The Road to Abolition is a collection of work by some of the best researchers on capital punishment assessing the prospects of a future without the death penalty."- - Aaron Lorenz (H-Humanitarian Rights) The Road to Abolition? may well become a history of the future, bringing together an impressive group of scholars who analyze the myriad social, legal, and political conditions that suggest that the end of the death penalty in America may be near. This collection of essays is provocative, creative, and deeply insightful, linking the problem of capital punishment to a series of larger debates of our time. It is a must read for anyone interested in the death penaltys past, present, and future in the United States. - Mona Lynch,author of Sunbelt Justice: Arizona and the Transformation of American Punishment In this era of national rethinking of the death penalty, The Road to Abolition? makes a singular contribution. From start to finish this is a compelling book. Bringing together a series of insightful essays by distinguished scholars, Ogletree and Sarat help us take stock of the progress weve made and what remains to be done to end capital punishment. For death penalty scholars as well as activists and policy makers this is a must read. - Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ,author of Dead Man Walking This timely book should be read by anyone who has a personal or professional interest in capital punishment. The chapters in this volume vividly capture both the current state and the future of the abolition movement in the United States. - John Blume,Professor of Law, Director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project, Cornell Law School