Imprisoned by the Past

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Imprisoned by the Past

Warren McCleskey, Race, and the American Death Penalty

Prof. Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier

Examines the long history of the American death penalty and its connection to the case of Warren McCleskey, one of the most important Supreme Court cases in history.
Provides one of the most thorough examinations of the history of the American death penalty.
Gives readers an understanding of the historical forces behind abolition and adoption of death penalty.
Provides a unique understanding of the death penalty in the context of a compelling human story.

New to this Edition:

Includes a new Preface with up-to-date legislative developments that focus on race, the death penalty, and our criminal justice system.

Imprisoned by the Past

Warren McCleskey, Race, and the American Death Penalty

Prof. Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier

Description

Imprisoned by the Past: Warren McCleskey, Race, and the American Death Penalty connects the history of the American death penalty to the case of Warren McCleskey. By highlighting the relation between American history and an individual case, Imprisoned by the Past provides a unique understanding of the big picture of capital punishment in the context of a compelling human story.

McCleskey's criminal law case resulted in one of the most important Supreme Court cases in U.S. legal history, where the Court confronted evidence of racial discrimination in the administration of capital punishment. The case marks the last that the Supreme Court realistically might have held that capital punishment violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As such, the constitutional law case also created a turning point in the death penalty debate in the country. The book connects McCleskey's case -- as well as his life and crime -- to the issues that have haunted the American death penalty debate since the first executions by early settlers and that still affect the legal system today.

Imprisoned by the Past ties together three unique American stories in U.S history. First, the book considers the changing American death penalty across centuries where drastic changes have occurred in the last fifty years. Second, the book discusses the role that race played in that history. And third, the book tells the story of Warren McCleskey and how his life and legal case brought together the other two narratives.

Imprisoned by the Past

Warren McCleskey, Race, and the American Death Penalty

Prof. Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition
Preface
Introduction
Part A - Prologue
Prologue: America's Marietta

Part B - A Killing in Georgia
Chapter 1: A Death in Dixie
Chapter 2: The Trial of Warren McCleskey
Chapter 3: Offie Evans and McCleskey v. Zant

Part C - American Death Penalty History And the Courts
Chapter 4: The First Limits: The Early American Death Penalty through the 1850s
Chapter 5: Wars and Death Penalty Abolition: The Civil War Through Early 1900s
Chapter 6: A Time of Change: American Society and the Death Penalty 1950s through the 1960s
Chapter 7: Into the Courthouse: The 1970s Abolition Strategy
Chapter 8: A New Era: A New U.S. Death Penalty Returns in the Late 1970s
Chapter 9: Starting Over: Executions Resume in the 1970s and 1980s

Part D - Lynching, Race, and McCleskey v. Kemp
Chapter 10: Lynching and Race in America
Chapter 11: Race and the Courts
Chapter 12: Warren McCleskey and the Baldus Study
Chapter 13: The Supreme Court and McCleskey v Kemp

Part E - Execution
Chapter 14: Mitigation and Reform
Chapter 15: Warren McCleskey & the Electric Chair
Chapter 16: Other American Execution Methods

Part F - The Capital Punishment Debate Moves Outside the Courts after McCleskey
Chapter 17: The Unstoppable Death Penalty After McCleskey into the early 1990s
Chapter 18: New Abolitionist Voices in the 1990s
Chapter 19: Innocence and the American Death Penalty
Chapter 20: A Moratorium Movement Emerges in the 1990s

Part G - McCleskey's Legacy in the Early Twenty-First Century
Chapter 21: The Early Twenty-First Century Death Penalty in the Courts
Chapter 22: The Early Twenty-First Century Death Penalty in U.S. Politics
Chapter 23: Escaping from Imprisonment of the Past

Part H - Epilogue
Epilogue: Warren McCleskey's Case and the American Death Penalty Today

Imprisoned by the Past

Warren McCleskey, Race, and the American Death Penalty

Prof. Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier

Author Information

Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier is a Professor of Law at City University of New York School of Law. He received his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Case Western Reserve University. Before joining the CUNY Law faculty, he was an Associate at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., and he taught at Tulane School of Law and Arizona State University College of Law. For several years, he was a staff attorney at the Arizona Capital Representation Project.

Prof. Kirchmeier is a member and former Chair of the Capital Punishment Committee of the New York City Bar Association, and has appeared before a New York Assembly joint committee regarding the reinstatement of the New York death penalty. He is the author of numerous law review articles on the subject of criminal procedure, constitutional law, and the death penalty.

Imprisoned by the Past

Warren McCleskey, Race, and the American Death Penalty

Prof. Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier

Reviews and Awards

"In McCleskey v. Kemp, the Supreme Court egregiously blinked-finding that patterns of life-or-death decisions in Georgia cases could be explained on no basis other than race, yet approving Georgia's use of the death penalty nonetheless. Imprisoned by the Past for the first time exposes the complex and disturbing reasons why the Supreme Court stumbled so badly in McCleskey and how the nation has been struggling ever since to extricate itself from a flawed and historically tainted punishment." -James S. Liebman, author of The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution

"Imprisoned by the Past is an important and compelling history of the United States death penalty. By placing that history next to the story of Warren McCleskey and the role of race, Jeff Kirchmeier provides new insight into the legacy of capital punishment and the status of the death penalty today. Anyone interested in understanding the sweeping scope of death penalty history and its human story will want to read this book." -Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents

"The Definitive examination of a case that might have revolutionized criminal Justice in the United States." - Evan J. Mandery, author of A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America

"This is an incredible book and indeed one of the most important death penalty books that has appeared on American bookshelves in recent decades. It is bound to be adopted in courses in Criminal Law and Criminology, and, in addition, will be widely read by practitioners and the wider public who are looking for a first-rate introduction to the way the death penalty works, and does not work, in modern American society." -Michael L. Radelet, co-author of In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases

"No legal decision in the last half of the 20th century characterized America's continuing failure to confront its history of racial inequality more than the McCleskey decision. Jeff Kirchmeier's welcomed and insightful book brings much needed context and perspective to this critically important issue. Compelling and thoughtful, this book is a must read for those trying to understand America's death penalty and its sordid relationship to our failure to overcome three centuries of racial injustice." -Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy: A Short Story of Justice and Redemption

"...Kirchmeier makes a persuasive case that an examination of the death penalty today reveals that "the past is still present" (p. 314). Imprisoned by the Past, Kirchmeier's significant contribution to capital punishment scholarship, impressively marshals a compelling body of historical and contemporary evidence in support of that sobering conclusion." -James R. Acker, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

"Kirchmeier's is a valuable book. He combines history with clear legal analysis." -Jeff Gamso, Gamso-For The Defense blog