3
British military officer, Major John Andre, is hanged after being convicted
of being a spy during the American Revolution. Andre was caught holding
the plans to West Point after meeting with American traitor, General Bene-
dict Arnold. (National Archives)
1 Background and History
Introduction
Benjamin Franklin once jested that the only two certainties are
death and taxes. And yet at this point in American history, death
in the form of the carrying out of a sentence of capital punish-
ment has become as uncertain and as complicated as the launch-
ing of a satellite into orbit. The parallels are numerous: both
involve hushed countdowns and media attention; both require
massive commitment of personnel and money that opponents
contend should be spent elsewhere; both can be canceled for a
seemingly endless list of reasons by persons far from the event
itself; and after the fact, both can only be debated, not retrieved.
The purpose of this book is to help the reader to understand
capital punishment—the imposition of the death penalty for
crime—in the United States. This requires knowledge of the
history of the death penalty before the origin of the country
and also short courses in political science, constitutional law,
public opinion polling, statistics, and medical technology.
The Death Penalty before It Was Capital Punishment
Before we can talk intelligently about capital punishment, we
have to give a meaningful definition to the term, and we need
