CRUEL AND UNUSUAL. The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment

Hardback. 'An account of the intellectual detective work, guile and passionate conviction of a few dedicated men seeking to effect momentous social change. This book is a fascinating portayal of the way lawers work, as well as a scholarly, up-to-the-minute account of the status of capital pnishment in the United States. In 1963, unknown to the general public, a small group of the nation's most talented and experienced civil rights and civil liberties lawyers set out to mount a constitutional assault on the death penalty. Led by Anthony Amsterdam, they master-minded a bitterly fought and controversial campaign of day-to-day skirmishes to keep over 600 death-row inmates alive until the Supreme Court could no longer avoid deciding their fate on constitutional grounds. These efforts led first to a 5yr. national moratorium on executions, then to a startling decision by the California Supreme Court prohibiting capital punishment, and ultimately to the landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 'Furman v. George' that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment as presently administered. A book telling the remarkable story of this fight in terms as accessible to laymen and students as to lawyers, and provides a unique insight in the complex, creative and little-understood process by which law is fashioned.' With Notes and Index. 338pp. 8vo. Browned edges, Vg+ in sl. frayed vg. dw. From the library of crime historian, Jonathan Goodman, with his embossed stamp to fep.