The Question Of Capital Punishment

January, 1977

The Nixon Legacy: Part VICapital punishment is an expression of society's moral outrage at particularly offensive conduct. This function may be unappealing to many, but it is essential to an ordered society that asks its citizens to rely on legal processes rather than self-help to vindicate their wrongs.--U.S. Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court celebrated the country's Bicentennial by revising its 1972 decision and holding that, on second thought, the death penalty is neither cruel nor unusual. It a...