Martin Clancy

Martin Clancy and Tim O'Brien discuss the crucial links between landmark capital-punishment cases and the lethal crimes at their root. The cases reported are truly "the cases that made the law"—and have defined the parameters that judges must follow for a death sentence to stand up on appeal. In Murder at the Supreme Court they tell how, in 1969, Supreme Court justices cast votes in secret that could have signaled the end of the death penalty, but the justices' resolve began to unravel.