A Wistful Goodbye to Capital Punishment

As I compose these remarks I am told by my colleagues who specialize in predicting the near-occult peregrinations of the United States Supreme Court that it is their view that the Court is moving inexorably toward the abolition of capital punishment, striking it down under the authority of the Eighth Amendment as a “cruel and unusual punishment” (such cases are pending) or, possibly, on the basis of the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The question presently before the Court asks whether capital punishment ought to be abolished on the grounds that it is a “cruel and unusual punishment.” It must be said at once, it seems to me, that the Court’s conclusions in this regard are not apt to turn on the intent of the authors of the Eighth Amendment, since it would appear, prima facie, that in their view the death penalty was an acceptable judicial punishment.

DZ

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Donald Atwell Zoll

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As I compose these remarks I am told by my colleagues who specialize in predicting the near-occult peregrinations of the United States Supreme Court that it is their view that the Court is moving inexorably toward the abolition of capital punishment, striking it down under the authority of the Eighth Amendment as a “cruel and unusual punishment” (such cases are pending) or, possibly, on the basis of the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The question presently before the Court asks whether capital punishment ought to be abolished on the grounds that it is a “cruel and unusual punishment.” It must be said at once, it seems to me, that the Court’s conclusions in this regard are not apt to turn on the intent of the authors of the Eighth Amendment, since it would appear, prima facie, that in their view the death penalty was an acceptable judicial punishment.