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In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United States went years without using the death penalty. Not a single person was killed by injection, firing squad, hanging, or electric chair. But by the late 90s, we were killing around 100 convicted criminals per year. What happened?

In 1972, the Supreme Court handed down its decision Furman v. Georgia, which negated state capital punishment laws across the country. This meant that some of the worst criminals in the country were suddenly given new sentences. And Americans... lost their minds. Within just a few years, new laws were written, and the Court decided to approve many of them.

The death penalty long had a prejudiced bent, disproportionately killing people of color. The NAACP worked hard to end the practice, but those efforts were soon undone as American opinions toward the death penalty abruptly changed.

My special guest for this episode is Maurice Chammah, author of Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty

Sources:

• Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty by Maurice Chammah
• The Death Penalty: An American History by Stuart Banner (an excellent source!)
• Reaganland by Rick Perlstein
• The Hijacking of American Flight 119: How D.B. Cooper Inspired a Hijacking Craze and the FBI's Battle to Stop It. by John Wigger
• Listen, America! by Jerry Falwell
• Romans 13 (and 1 for a fact check)
• The US Constitution

• September 26, 1973 (page 94 of 98). (1973, Sep 26). The Ottawa Citizen (1954-1973) Retrieved from https://wsl.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/september-26-1973-page-94-98/docview/2338669544/se-2

• Oyez.org coverage of Furman v. Georgia
• Oyez.org coverage of Gregg v. Georgia
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4G_O_Z55fQ
• Pew Research data on crime

Discussion Questions:

• What are your thoughts on the death penalty?
• Why was the Furman case so important? What did it decide?
• Should juries have guidelines when considering a death penalty case?
• Why is the death penalty so popular among evangelicals?

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