The Death Penalty on the Ballot

Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College, Massachusetts. He is author or editor of over ninety books in the fields of law and political science, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty (2014). His book When Government Breaks the Law: The Rule of Law and the Prosecution of the Bush Administration (2010) was named one of the best books of 2010 by The Huffington Post.

• 1. Introduction: when the death penalty goes public; 2. Retention, abolition, and restoration in the early days of the death penalty referendum process; 3. The people versus their representatives: going to the polls to support capital punishment; 4. Targeting the courts; 5. A tool for abolition?; 6. Conclusion: democracy and the fate of capital punishment.

'From Arizona in 1918 to California in 2016, death penalty abolitionists have chronically failed to convince American voters to abolish capital punishment. In their groundbreaking study of these losses at the ballot box, Austin Sarat, John Malague, and Sarah Wishloff offer important insights about the place of punishment in American politics and culture. Through a series of fascinating case studies, they argue that abolition of the death penalty won't occur until human dignity becomes integral to the meaning of American democracy. With lessons for activists and academics alike, The Death Penalty on the Ballot is a provocative and compelling study of the demand for the punishment of death in the only western democracy that still permits it.' Daniel LaChance, Emory University, Atlanta