Book Review: The Death Penalty on the Ballot: American Democracy and the Fate of Capital Punishment

• Author: Abiodun Raufu
• Date: 01 May 2020
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0093854820908618
• Subject Matter: Book Review

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2020, Vol. 47, No. 5, May 2020, 624 –627.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854820908618

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© 2020 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

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BOOK REVIEW

Sarat, A., Malague, J., & Wishloff, S. (2019). The Death Penalty on the Ballot: American Democracy and the

Fate of Capital Punishment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 202 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1108711579.

Paperback $20.52

The death penalty is the most extreme form of punishment known to man. Protagonists

argue that the death penalty’s efficacy lies in its deterrent and retributive values, not

only to discourage others from committing a similar offense but to also dispense punish-

ment that is commensurate to the crime. Retribution is seen as integral to natural law and

lex talionis, the ancient Mosaic principle of an eye for an eye, was required for victim heal-

ing and affirmation of social solidarity. In their book, The Death Penalty on the Ballot:

American Democracy and the Fate of Capital Punishment, Austin Sarat, John Malague, and

Sarah Wishloff made no secret of their support for the abolition of the death penalty from

the American penal code. Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst

College in Massachusetts, is an eminent scholar who has authored or edited more than 90

books. He has also written extensively on the death penalty. Some of his earlier publications

on the subject matter include From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death

Penalty in America (2006), When Law Fails: Making Sense of Miscarriages of Justice

(2009), and The Road to Abolition? The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States

(2010) all of which he co-edited with Charles Ogletree. The co-authors of this book,

Malague and Wishloff, were Dr. Sarat’s graduate students.

What sets this book apart from others on this subject matter is the authority and clarity

with which the authors chronicled the history of the struggle to abolish the death penalty

through the ballot. The book painstakingly explored the long, strenuous efforts to convince

a skeptical American public about the need to repeal the death penalty amid the volatile

political environment in which the century-long drama has played out. Divided into six

chapters, Sarat, Malague, and Wishloff examined the nexus between American public atti-

tudes and capital punishment and its consequences for public policy.

The authors observed that the United States is one of the few countries in the western

world that still retains the death penalty in its criminal code, a status they opined befits only

repressive regimes and Third World countries who generally use capital punishment to deal

with a wide array of offenses. They argued that state execution is barbaric and produces no

instrumental benefits beyond pointless retribution and symbolism. In addition, the authors

examined the history of the death penalty in the United States, detailing the antideath pen-

alty struggle since colonial days as the abolitionists tried to garner national public support.

But at the brink of every breakthrough was all too often a publicized murder that create a

setback, hardening the resolve of a skeptical public.

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