punishment, but also to the factors such as “botched” executions and DNA exonerations which are helping to push many states towards the abolition of capital punishment demonstrating support for capital punishment is not only linked to social, cultural, financial and political factors but also to the smoothness of the process by which the death penalty is implemented. In Furman v. Georgia the Supreme Court ruled that the use of capital punishment in America at that time could be said to constitute cruel and unusual punishment due to the arbitrary nature of sentencing. This decision led to a four-year moratorium on the use of capital punishment. In the run up to the decision support for capital punishment had dropped to record lows of less than 50 percent. 2 Hugo Adam Bedau highlights a link between the Supreme Court decision and the Civil Rights Movement, stating that the lawyers who pushed for abolition of the death penalty were a feature of the wider movement for the rights of African Americans. 3 Similarly, David McKay highlights the argument of Civil Rights activists who believed that the capital nature of rape was designed to prevent sexual contact between different races. 4 David Von Drehle highlights that the execution of African Americans for rape was so common that it was often 2 Gallup, ‘Death Penalty’ <http://www.gallup.com/poll/1606/death- penalty.aspx> [accessed 24 April 2016]. 3 Hugo Adam Bedau, ‘An Abolitionist’s Survey of the Death Penalty in America Today’ , in Debating the Death Penalty: Should America Have Capital Punishment? - the Experts on Both Sides Make Their Best Case , by Hugo Adam Bedau and Paul G Cassell (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 31. 4 David McKay, ‘Capital Punishment the Politics of Retribution’, in Controversies in American Politics & Society , by David McKay, David Houghton, and Andrew Wroe, ed. by David McKay, David Houghton, and Andrew Wroe (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), p. 143.
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