|
|
Article: Capital Punishment in America.
- Article from:
- Michigan Law Review
- Article date:
- May 1, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Michigan Law Review Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The execution of Robert Harris in California on April 21, 1992, indicates that the pattern of American executions, which has changed dramatically over the past three decades, may be ready to shift again. During the mid-1960s, executions, which had occurred at the rate of about fifty per year in the late 1950s,(1) slowed to a trickle and then stopped.(2) As a result of a series of Supreme Court decisions, culminating in Furman v. Georgia,(3) which held the then-existing system of capital punishment unconstitutional, no executions occurred from June 2, 1967 until January 17, 1977. In the late 1970s, executions resumed under a new legal structure,(4) but until the mid-1980s ...