Ep 170 — Death Penalty pt. 1

We begin our next series, this time on Capital Punishment. We start with the history of crimes throughout written history that justified the death penalty. Then we get into colonial history and how the death penalty was built into the foundations of racist America. Multiple Supreme Court rulings have shifted the landscape. We end with the recent EO attempting to expand the powers of the death penalty.

Death Penalty survey #1: https://forms.gle/S31MTYbM8JNsikpe9 

Show Notes: 

History of the death penalty: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/history-of-the-death-penalty/ 

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/background/history-of-the-death-penalty/early-history-of-the-death-penalty 

Timeline of the history of the death penalty: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/history-of-the-death-penalty-timeline 

History of the death penalty in USA: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/background/history-of-the-death-penalty 

Death penalty in the U.S.: https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-procedure/the-u-s-and-the-death-penalty.html 

Capital punishment in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States 

On Crimes and Punishment by Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria, 1764: https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/cesare-bonesana-di-beccariaon-crimes-and-punishments-1764 Overview of the death penalty and capital trials: History, current status, legal procedures, and cost: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/overview-death-penalty-and-capital-trials-history-current-status 

Crimes act of 1790: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_Act_of_1790 List of women executed in the United States since 1976: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women_executed_in_the_United_States_since_1976 

Amnesty International resources https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/

“The Movement to Abolish Capital Punishment in America, 1787-1861” by David Brion Davis: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1847110?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Study reveals racial bias in executions: https://eji.org/news/study-reveals-racial-bias-in-executions/

“I just wanted to … stay alive” Who was WIlliam Furman, the prisoner at the center of a historic legal decision?: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/i-just-wanted-to-stay-alive-who-was-william-henry-furman-the-prisoner-at-the-center-of-a-historic-legal-decision 

Furman v Georgia:  https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/408/238.html

chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1097&context=law-student-publications 

Gregg v Georgia: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/428/153.html 

HIstorical Federal Executions: https://www.usmarshals.gov/who-we-are/history/historical-reading-room/historical-federal-executions 

Judiciary Act of 1789: https://www.usmarshals.gov/who-we-are/history/historical-reading-room/judiciary-act-of-1789-charter-us-marshals-and-deputies 

EO on expanded Death Penalty

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-the-death-penalty-and-protecting-public-safety/

https://prismreports.org/2025/02/10/death-penalty-undocumented-immigrants-trump/

https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/florida-lawmakers-push-for-mandatory-death-penalty-in-immigration-crackdown/

Equal Justice Initiative

https://eji.org/issues/death-penalty/

Texas Department of Criminal Justice on DP

https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_facts.html

McCleskey v. Kemp

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/481/279/

EJI on McCleskey v. Kemp

https://eji.org/news/the-legacy-of-mccleskey-v-kemp/

Racial bias in death penalty

https://eji.org/news/study-reveals-racial-bias-in-executions/

Furman v Georgia

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/69-5030

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/408/238/

Wilkerson v Utah

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/99/130/

The Movement to Abolish Capitla Punishment by David Brion Davis

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1847110?read-now=1&seq=7#page_scan_tab_contents

Abraham Johnstone address

https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/johnstone/johnstone.html

Slave Executions in the US

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0362331999800019

Execution statistics in US

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/executions-overview/executions-in-the-u-s-1608-2002-the-espy-file

Thomas Paine opposing execution of Louis XVI

https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/paine-opposes-executing-king-1793/

History of lynching in America

https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-lynching-america#:~:text=Lynchings%20did%20not%20occur%20in,the%20only%20victims%20of%20lynching.

Confronting hte legacy of lynching in America

https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/

Other appearances: Chris Shelton interviewed us in the beginning of a series on Mormonism: https://youtu.be/gDCeSOr3U-s?si=bjxiWo-jaYtIESKP 

Recent Live Show Book Club on Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCxAsGWNVXo 

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