Description

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Does the death penalty violate the Constitution? In Against the Death Penalty, Justice Stephen Breyer argues that it does; that it is carried out unfairly and inconsistently and, thus, violates the ban on ""cruel and unusual punishments"" specified by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

About the Author

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"Stephen Breyer has been an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court since 1994. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School, clerked for Associate Justice Arthur J. Goldberg in the 1964-65 Supreme Court term, and taught at Harvard for nearly two decades before joining the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in 1980. President Clinton nominated Breyer to succeed Harry Blackmun on the Supreme Court in 1994. John Bessler is a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He is also of counsel to the Minneapolis law firm of Berens & Miller, P.A., which handles complex commercial litigation."