Professor Robert M. Bohm has published a new book on capital punishment, The Ultimate Sanction: Understanding the Death Penalty Through Its Many Voices and Many Sides. The book looks at the death penalty through interviews with people affected by the system in different ways. "We must," Bohm writes, "begin to understand the reach of capital punishment beyond just the victim and the perpetrator." To that end, he includes perspectives from investigators, prosecutors, prison wardens, victims' and offenders' families, judges, and attorneys. The book uses interviews to explore issues of deterrence, retribution, and fairness, while taking a unique look at how the death penalty affects those who participate in the system. In conclusion, Bohm suggests that capital punishment's collateral damage is another reason for reconsidering the wisdom of this ultimate sanction.
A new book by Professor John D. Bessler, titled Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment, challenges the conventional wisdom that the country's founders were avid death penalty supporters, and explores their various views on capital punishment. Prof. Bessler discusses how the indiscriminate use of executions gave way to a more enlightened approach that has been evolving ever since. He sheds new light on the Constitution’s “cruel and unusual punishments” clause by exploring the early influence of Cesare Beccaria’s essay, On Crimes and Punishments. Bessler examines the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment case law and concludes that the death penalty may well be declared unconstitutional in time. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, called the book, “A searing indictment of capital punishment, this pioneering history of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause is destined to reframe America’s death penalty debate. As a definitive account of the Eighth Amendment’s origins and the Founding Fathers’ own ambivalent views on executions, it will forever change our perceptions of cruelty and penal reform in the founding era." 
The fourth edition of Robert Bohm’s “Deathquest: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Capital Punishment in the United States,” is now available through Anderson Publishing. The new edition is updated with discussion of the latest research on the effectiveness of the death penalty, the potential for discriminatory application, costs, and new data on miscarriages of justice, public opinion, and the influences of religion. This textbook includes two new chapters on legal challenges to the death penalty and analysis of capital punishment by the U.S. Supreme Court since 1976. Robert Bohm is a professor of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies at the University of Central Florida. A former corrections worker, Professor Bohm is a prolific author and speaker on capital punishment and other criminal justice topics.
A classic book about the death penalty has recently been re-published and is now available in paperback and electronic form. Cruel and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment was written by Michael Meltsner, currently a professor at Northeastern University School of Law, and one of the key architects at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund behind the challenge that led to Furman v. Georgia in 1972. This Supreme Court decision resulted in overturning every death penalty law and every death sentence in the country.
A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Raymond Bonner, Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong, investigates the shortcomings of the justice system in the case of Edward Lee Elmore, a black man sentenced to death in South Carolina in 1982. Elmore, who was semi-literate with intellectual disabilities, was sent to death row for the murder and sexual assault of a white woman, even though there was little connection between him and the victim. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death barely ninety days after the victim's body was found. Bonner describes a comprehensive story of racism, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective representation in Elmore's case and concludes that the same injustices occur in other murder cases across the country. DPIC Note: Elmore was eventually spared from execution when a South Carolina court ruled in 2010 that he suffered from mental retardation. At one time, he was the longest serving death row inmate in the state.
A forthcoming book by John D. Bessler, "Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders' Eighth Amendment," discusses the history of the Eighth Amendment and the country's founders’ views on capital punishment. While the conventional wisdom is that the founders were avid death penalty supporters, Bessler's examination shows they had conflicting and ambivalent views on the subject. Bessler analyzes the U.S. Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment case law and argues that the death penalty should probably be held unconstitutional. Sister Helen Prejean, noted activist and author of Dead Man Walking, described Bessler's book as: “A searing indictment of capital punishment, this pioneering history of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause is destined to reframe America’s death penalty debate. As a definitive account of the Eighth Amendment’s origins and the Founding Fathers’ own ambivalent views on executions, it will forever change our perceptions of cruelty and penal reform in the founding era." John Bessler is an associate professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.
