The Highs and Lows of Wild Justice

Abstract

This essay is a book review of Evan Mandery’s A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America, and Thane Rosenbaum’s Payback: The Case for Revenge. Mandery’s book is the story of the Supreme Court abolishing the death penalty in 1972’s Furman v. Georgia, and then legitimizing it four years later in Gregg v. Georgia. Rosenbaum’s book is an argument for revenge as an operative principle in our criminal justice system. In this review, I consider each book on its own terms. Mandery sets out to tell a story, and does it exceedingly well. Rosenbaum sets out to make an argument, and falls short by that criterion. Together, these two books — one named Wild Justice, and the other about wild justice — offer an opportunity to contemplate the retributivist viewpoint that anchors capital punishment today.

Keywords: death penalty, retribution, revenge