Is the death penalty cruel and unusual?

The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide the amendment's boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? In this hour, the shifting definition of cruel and unusual punishment. 

This episode was originally published in January 2025. 

Guests:

John Bessler, law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, and adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Author of The Death Penalty's Denial of Fundamental Human Rights.

Carol Steiker, law professor at Harvard Law School and author of Courting Death: the Supreme Court and Capital Punishment.


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