Table Of ContentSlavery and the Death Penalty
It has long been acknowledged that the death penalty in the United States of
America has been shaped by the country’s history of slavery and racial violence,
butthisbookconsidersthelesser-exploredrelationshipbetweenthetwopractices’
respective abolitionist movements. The book explains how the historical and con-
ceptual links between slavery and capital punishment have both helped and hin-
deredeffortstoendcapitalpunishment.Thecomparativestudyalsoshedslighton
the nature of such efforts, and offers lessons for how death penalty abolitionism
should proceed in future. Using the history of slavery and abolition, it is argued
that anti-death penalty efforts should be premised on the ideologies of the radical
slavery abolitionists.
DrBharatMalkaniresearchesandteachesinthefieldofcapitalpunishment,and
human rights and criminal justice more broadly. He is a member of the Interna-
tional Academic Network for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, and prior to
joining academia he helped co-ordinate efforts to abolish the death penalty for
persons under the age of 18 in America.
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Slavery and the Death Penalty
A Study in Abolition
Bharat Malkani
Firstpublished2018
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
andbyRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©2018BharatMalkani
TherightofBharatMalkanitobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeen
assertedbyhiminaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,
DesignsandPatentsAct1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
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trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintent
toinfringe.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Names:Malkani,Bharat,author.
Title:Slaveryandthedeathpenalty:astudyinabolition/BharatMalkani.
Description:NewYork,NY:Routledge,2018.|Series:Law,justiceand
power|Includesindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2017060124|ISBN9781472452740(hardback)
Subjects:LCSH:Capitalpunishment--UnitedStates.|Slavery--UnitedStates.|
Antislaverymovements--UnitedStates.
Classification:LCCKF9227.C2M342018|DDC364.660973--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2017060124
ISBN:978-1-4724-5274-0(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-60930-0(ebk)
TypesetinGalliard
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
For Zoe and Lucas and to all those who, in whatever capacity,
are bending the arc of the moral universe towards justice.
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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1 The death penalty in the era of slavery 22
2 Capital punishment and the legacy of slavery, 1865–1976 32
3 The legacy of slavery in capital punishment since 1976 55
4 Abolitionism defined 79
5 Radical abolitionist constitutionalism 107
6 The experiential abolitionist 137
7 Abolitionism and “alternatives” 162
8 Non-complicity and abolitionism: from fugitive slaves to
lethal injections 186
9 A peculiar abolition 220
Index 227
Acknowledgements
This project would not have come to fruition without the extraordinary help of
manypeople.IoweparticularthankstoProfessorAustinSaratwhoencouragedme
to pursue the idea behind this book. Professors Manisha Sinha, Paul Finkelman,
Julia O’Connell Davidson, and Zoe Trodd all took time to answer queries about
slavery and abolition from a person whom they had never met. David Menschel,
AbrahamBonowitz,RobertDunham,andMonaLynchalsorespondedkindlyto
questions, and have helped me articulate my understanding of the nature of
contemporary efforts to outlaw capital punishment. I was fortunate to be invited
to the annual gathering of Witness to Innocence in Philadelphia in 2014, and I
am exceptionally grateful to all those people who welcomed me and spoke with
me about their role as abolitionists: Ray Krone, Sabrina Butler-Smith, Joe
D’Ambrosio, Clarence Brandley, Harold Wilson, Juan Melendez, Shareef
Cousin, Father Neil Kookoothe, Kathleen Lucas, Marshall Dayan, Scott Bass,
and Steve Honeyman.
I am also grateful to the organizers and participants who provided me with
invaluable feedback at the following conferences, where I presented various
aspects of my research: the Law and Society Annual Meeting in Minneapolis in
2014, where the seeds for this book were sown; the Academic Meeting at the
WorldCongressAgainsttheDeathPenaltyinOsloin2016;theBritishAssociation
ofAmericanStudiesconferenceinCanterburyin2017;andtheHistoriansAgainst
Slavery conference in Liverpool in 2017.
Much of my research and writing took place while I was a lecturer at
Birmingham Law School, and in subtle but important ways, several colleagues
helped ensure that I had the space to concentrate on this project. Robert Cryer,
Stephen Smith, Rosa Freedman, Adrian Hunt, and Gavin Byrne deserve special
mention. My then-Head of School, Professor Robert Lee, granted me an
extended period of research leave, and I owe much thanks to him. I am also
grateful for the financial assistance that covered travel and living costs for various
research trips.
A number of people read drafts of chapters and helped me immeasurably with
gettingthemanuscriptintoshape.ProfessorsRogerHood,JohnBessler,Fionade
Londras, Erika Rackley, Dirk van zyl Smit, Kevin Barry, and Michael Radelet all
provided valuable feedback, as did Andrew Novak, David Connor and the
Acknowledgements ix
anonymous reviewer. Two former students of mine should also be singled out for
theirfirst-rateresearchassistance:thankyou,GraceChecklandandRachaelToon.
Finally, but perhaps most of all, thanks to my incredible wife and best friend,
Zoe, for putting up with the lost evenings and weekends, and to our son Lucas.
Thesubjectmattersofthisbook–enslavementandexecution–maybebleak,but
you’ve consistently brightened my days and nights.
