Who Deserves To Die?: Constructing The Executable Subject

How do we select those who will be subject to capital punishment? How do we identify the worst of the worst and decide who among them can and should be executed? Today these questions are more pressing than they have ever been. As the number of people sentenced to death and executed declines in the United States, those who are executed stand out as distinctive kinds of criminals, distinctive kinds of people. Does a death sentence affirm or deny their humanity? Is such a sentence an act of revenge or a carefully calculated act of justice? These questions help us understand what makes life worth preserving and delve into the complex calculus of punishment and retribution. This book, featuring a distinguished group of death penalty scholars, assesses the legal subjectivity and community supported and constructed by the doctrines and practices of death penalty in the United States.