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Franklin E. Zimring reveals that the seemingly insoluble turmoil surrounding the death penalty reflects a long-standing division in American values, one that he predicts will soon bring about the end of capital punishment in our country. On one hand, execution would seem to violate our nation's highest legal principles of fairness and due process. It sets us increasingly apart from our allies and indeed is regarded by European nations as a barbaric and particularly egregious form of American exceptionalism. On the other hand, the death penalty represents a deeply held American belief in violent social justice that sees the hangman as an agent of local control and safeguard of community values. Zimring uncovers the most troubling symptom of this attraction to vigilante justice in the lynch mob. He links modern execution rates to the presence of a vigilante tradition in certain states of the Union, and demonstrates that recent conflicts over appeals procedures and the dangers of executing innocent persons are a repetition of a conflict in values that has been evident for more than a century. It is the vigilante legacy, Zimring argues, that constitutes both the distinctive appeal of the death penalty in the United States and one of the most compelling reasons for abolishing it. - Publisher.

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