On the Liberating Virtues of Irrelevance

Abstract

The analyses of the death penalty reported in these pages, while diverse in both subject and method, are part of a distinctive post–McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) generation of studies in which the social science literature on capital punishment has begun to stand separate from ever present constitutional litigation on death penalty issues. This independence of scholarship from litigation has come as a consequence of rejection: A majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has forcefully rebuffed the attempts of social scientists to influence the constitutional law of capital punishment.