GEORGE WILL
WASHINGTON The death of capital punishment in the United States is not only desirable but also paradoxical. Attempts to make this practice constitutional have enveloped it with ever-more-refined procedural safeguards intended to make it compatible with the Eighth Amendment’s proscription of “cruel and unusual punishments.” But the safeguards have made it increasingly like then-Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s1972 description of it as “cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual.”
Maurice Chammah in “Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty” says, “In 1959, there had been 124 murders in Harris County, Texas, which encompassed Houston, but only three people sentenced to death.” Arbitrariness was one reason the Supreme Court, in a 1972 case that generated opinions from all nine justices (cumulatively, 233 pages), ruled that capital punishment in all 41 states that administered it w
Beyond totalitarianism stalinism and nazism compared | Twentieth century European history cambridge.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cambridge.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
If you’re trying to make sense of the Capitol riot, read these books
On January 6, the world watched as the US Capitol was attacked by pro-Trump rioters. Since then, each day has been filled with revelations about how it was plotted and carried out. Many are still trying to process the initial shock.
While seeing Confederate and Trump 2020 flags draped all over the Capitol was a shocking sight for some, others were not surprised.
“It was simply the culmination of the past four years under Trump’s presidency,” said librarian Djaz Zulida.
Zulida is a job information resource librarian for the Brooklyn Public Library system. Soon after the riot, the library set out to compile books that would help put this insurrection into perspective.
Historian charts Hitler s lightning rise to power | Features stljewishlight.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stljewishlight.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.