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July 11, 2022

Furman at 50: some recent notable coverage

As noted in this recent post, the US Supreme Court's remarkable death penalty opinion in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), is now a half century and I have not decided to create a series of "Furman at 50" posts.  Unsurprisingly, I am not the only one to note the Furman milestone, and here is a round-up of some recent coverage and commentary I have seen from various sources:

From the Dalton Daily Citizen, "50 years after SCOTUS ruled death penalty cruel and unusual, race factors heavily in executions"

From the Death Penalty Information Center, "DPIC Analysis Finds Prosecutorial Misconduct Implicated in More than 550 Death Penalty Reversals or Exonerations"

From The Marshall Project, "The Supreme Court Let The Death Penalty Flourish.  Now Americans are Ending It Themselves."

From Slate, "Fifty Years Ago, the Supreme Court Tried to Reduce Racial Bias in the Death Penalty. Did It Work?"

From UPI, "50 years after Furman ruling, death penalty may come down to states, experts say"

From The Washington Post, "Death penalty’s 50-year rise and fall since Supreme Court struck it down"

Related prior posts:

July 11, 2022 at 05:53 PM | Permalink

Comments

Hopefully more states abolish the death penalty in the coming years. Perhaps the death penalty will be outlawed nationwide in 20 years. The next step is reducing the number of people sentenced to LWOP.

Posted by: Anon | Jul 11, 2022 9:35:08 PM

Anon --

One might think that the next step would be reducing the number of people who get murdered, but better that we gush for the killers than care about the killed.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jul 11, 2022 10:47:32 PM

There is a way to reduce homicides in the US: Gun control. If America implemented strict gun control laws, gun deaths would significantly decline.

Posted by: Anon | Jul 13, 2022 5:00:51 PM

Anon,

70% of US counties have no more than one murder a year. 54% have zero. Murder is greatly concentrated in very small areas with 2% of counties having more than half of the murders.

Do those 70% of counties not have guns?

The problem is cultural. I point you to the viral video from Monday of the little child in his underwear swearing at and hitting police officers. Bastardy and lack of male role models are the issues, not guns.

Posted by: TarlsQtr | Jul 14, 2022 8:46:21 AM

Anon --

"There is a way to reduce homicides in the US: Gun control. If America implemented strict gun control laws, gun deaths would significantly decline."

That proposition has been studied extensively and found to be false.


https://ringsideatthereckoning.substack.com/p/is-more-gun-control-the-answer

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jul 15, 2022 4:59:40 PM

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