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Thoughts on the Death Penalty

Why is the U.S. such an outliers when it comes to criminal sentencing? Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens writes for The New York Review of Books.
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Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens reviews a new book written on the death penalty. Justice Stevens was a consistent critic of capital punishment; he resigned from the Court in 2010: David Garland is a well-respected sociologist and legal scholar who taught courses on crime and punishment at the University of Edinburgh before relocating to the United States over a decade ago. His recent Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition is the product of his attempt to learn “why the United States is such an outlier in the severity of its criminal sentencing.”

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