Between 1990 and 2005, only eight countries in the world still sentenced people younger than eighteen to death for their crimes -- Iran, China, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, and the United States of America.
My new book, No Choirboy, takes you into America's prisons and allows inmates sentenced to death as teenagers to speak for themselves. In their own voices - raw and uncensored - they talk about their lives in prison and share their thoughts and feelings about how they ended up there.
Although the focus of the book is on the individuals - both actor and victim - whose lives are forever changed by violence, there is more I'd like to share with you. This section of my Website will be devoted to "out-takes," some of the many facts I learned while researching this book.
Check in as often as you want. And if you have specific questions I'll try to answer them at susan@susankuklin.com
A Maximum Security Prison - Alabama
I. MAJOR COURT RULINGS WHICH HAVE AFFECTED DEATH PENALTY LAW IN THE U.S.
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972)
The death penalty as applied is arbitrary and capricious and therefore a violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The death penalty was, in practical terms, abolished.
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. (1976)
The punishment of death for the crime of murder did not, under all circumstances, violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Retribution and the possibility of deterrence of capital crimes by future offenders were not intolerable considerations for legislatures to weigh when determining whether the death penalty should be imposed.
This case distinguished Furman and the death penalty was reinstated.
Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978)
The death penalty can only be imposed after the sentencer has been permitted to consider mitigating evidence which includes evidence about the circumstances of the offense and the character of the offender.
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 70 (1986)
Batson prohibited a prosecutor from challenging potential jurors solely on account of their race, or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable to impartially consider the States’ case against a black defendant.
McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987)
This case was based on a study in Georgia called The Baldus Study. It demonstrated that the death penalty was imposed more often on black defendants and the killers of white victims than on white defendants and killers of black victims. No matter. The Court ruled that though there appeared to be a correlation regarding race, there was not a constitutionally significant risk of racial bias with Georgia’s capital-sentencing process. Thus, it did not establish a violation of the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment.
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963)
This case is not a death penalty case per se. It established the precedent for the defendant to be entitled to a new trial if exculpatory evidence was not disclosed by the prosecution.
Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002)
The execution of a mentally retarded criminal is considered cruel and unusual punishment
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)
The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of offenders who were under the age of eighteen when their crimes were committed.
HISTORICAL TIDBITS:
In 1882, Thomas Edison amazed the world when he lit up Wall Street. But there was a problem. The voltage from his direct current (DC) was too low to travel more than about a mile from his power station. George Westinghouse, a competitor of Edison, solved the voltage problem by using alternating currents (AC) to transmit electricity more powerfully. The “battle of the currents” became hot news.
Edison wanted to convince the public that Westinghouse’s AC current was more dangerous than his own, and he came up with a creative plan. In the courts and laboratories in the United States, the “science of death” was being studied in order to find a humane and speedy way to carry out capital punishment.
A new method of death – electrocution – became the method of choice. According to the Supreme Court, electrocution was “a step forward ... based on grounds of mercy and humanity.”
Even though Edison said he was personally opposed to capital punishment, he managed to control his repulsion, and lobby congress in favor of the electric chair. He said that “an electric current of 1,000 volts would kill instantly, painlessly, and in every case.” Then, he endorsed the use of AC, Westinghouse’s current, because DC “doesn’t seem to have much effect on the nerves.”
Edison figured that if AC was used to kill people in the electric chair, Americans would never allow it into their homes to cook their meals and light their rooms. “The executioner’s current,” he called it. Westinghouse was furious.
