Book Review: Lethal state: A history of the death penalty in North Carolina

• Author: Kathleen M. Donovan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016819879480
• Published date: 01 June 2023
• Date: 01 June 2023

Nonetheless, Godsey deserves credit for attempting to shine a light on the blind spots in criminal

justice prosecutions, especially because he does so with a humility that invites criminal justice actors

to consider the presence of such blind spots without any condemnation. Godsey’s book may not be a

panacea for all of the injustices in our system, but it is a positive attempt to show the way toward change.

Kotch, S. (2019). Lethal state: A history of the death penalty in North Carolina. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press. 307

pp. $27.95. ISBN: 978-1-4696-4987-0.

Reviewed by: Kathleen M. Donovan ,St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016819879480

The story of the death penalty in North Carolina, like that of the nation generally, is a tragic one,

filled with pain, rage, and fear. These elements bubble throughout Seth Kotch’sfirst book, Lethal

State, and leave the reader more sensitive to the complicated historical, legal, and political structures

supporting capital punishment today. More deliberately, the narrative highlights the importance of

race and class when it comes to who gets the ultimate punishment and why. A more conservative

reader might note that many if not most of those executed were guilty and that retribution is a legit-

imate goal of punishment. But Lethal State makes clear that the history of capital punishment is inex-

tricably linked with the history of race in America and adds to a growing body of work that reveals

how, in many ways, the modern criminal justice system is “the new Jim Crow.”

The evidence Kotch provides in weaving this narrative is both wide-ranging and meticulous. The

seamless use of newspapers, governors’papers, political and charitable reports, academic research,

and capital punishment databases is one of the strengths of the text. In the end, one cannot escape the

number of executions, the words of those administering it, or the images of those being executed,

some innocently, in the name of racial social control. When combined with evidence of false convic-

tions and the questionable humanity of various execution methods, it leads Kotch to rightly question

whether the death penalty is a “history of failure”—and answer in the affirmative.

The text is organized in overlapping but chronological chapters, from the state’sfirst recorded

education in 1726 to the modern era, in which old age is the most common method of execution

for the state’s death row inmates. The introduction provides a quick overview of the death

penalty, and its “deeply rooted”history in racial slavery, from colonial times to the Civil War.

This relationship is explored more fully in Chapter 1, which covers the Reconstruction era into

the first half of the 20th century. Those with some prior knowledge of racial bias and the death

penalty today may find this to be the most interesting chapter, as it takes a detailed look at how

and why lynchings and state executions reinforced one another. Kotch argues that these two

forms of punishment—both of which took place in the form of hanging—worked together to main-

tain White supremacy. Indeed, it is hard to argue with the state’s governor (“The courts in the land are

all in control of the whites, so there is never an excuse for lynching”) and White citizens (“Will you

promise us if we don’t kill him that he will be convicted and hanged?”) when they say so themselves.

Chapter 2 argues that spectacle and shifting cultural values during the Progressive era drove

changes in the death penalty. Kotch outlines how, in addition to moving it indoors and limiting

who could view the execution, North Carolina switched first to electrocution and then to lethal

gas. These attempts at creating a more dignified death, whether achieved or not, reveal the difficult

nature of administering the death penalty. This is further complicated by the fact that race continued

to be central to the issue, as revealed by the “notoriously overwritten”and racist media coverage, and

the whitening of witnesses to executions, even as the number of executed persons remained dispro-

portionately Black.

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