Quest for Abolition

Quest For Abolition Critical Issues In Policing Michael O’Brien INTRODUCTION In 1972, the Supreme Court declared that under the existing laws “the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.” (Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238) The majority of the Court concentrated it’s objections on the way death penalty laws had been applied, finding the result so “harsh, freakish, and arbitrary” as …

…is widespread and diverse. Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant religious groups, national organizations representing people of color, and public-interest law groups are among the more than fifty national organizations that constitute the National Collation to Abolish the Death Penalty. Once in use everywhere, and for a wide variety of crimes, the death penalty today is generally forbidden by law and widely abandoned in practice. The unmistakable worldwide trend is toward the complete abolition of capital punishment.