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Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid : the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Thesis
text
History
Kotch, Seth.
Creator
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (William Fitzhugh), 1959-
Thesis
advisor
200905
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid : the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Thesis
text
History
Kotch, Seth.
Creator
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (William Fitzhugh), 1959-
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid : the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Thesis
text
History
Kotch, Seth.
Creator
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (William Fitzhugh), 1959-
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid : the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
History
Kotch, Seth.
Creator
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (William Fitzhugh), 1959-
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid : the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
History
Kotch, Seth.
Creator
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (William Fitzhugh), 1959-
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Kotch, Seth
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina,
1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Kotch, Seth
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution
record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about
the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex
influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and
governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised
reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the
nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired
lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became
among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to
dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on
methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death
penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially
those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even
African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that
revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape,
burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding
guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with
petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty
was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while,
some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as
punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in
one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and
ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication
available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Kotch, Seth
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Kotch, Seth
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Kotch, Seth
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Kotch, Seth
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Seth
Kotch
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
W. Fitzhugh
Brundage
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Seth
Kotch
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
W. Fitzhugh
Brundage
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Seth
Kotch
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
W. Fitzhugh
Brundage
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
Open access
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Degree granting institution
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Seth
Kotch
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
W. Fitzhugh
Brundage
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
Open access
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Degree granting institution
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Seth
Kotch
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
W. Fitzhugh
Brundage
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid: the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Dissertation
text
Department of History
Seth
Kotch
Creator
College of Arts and Sciences
W. Fitzhugh
Brundage
Thesis advisor
2009-05
eng
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
Open access
Unduly harsh and unworkably rigid : the death penalty in North Carolina, 1910-1961
Some contemporary observers believe that southern states' prolific execution record can be traced back to a violent southern past. But an examination of concerns about the pain inflicted by the noose, the electric chair, and the gas chamber; of the complex influence of race on the death penalty process; of recommendations of mercy by jurors and governors' acts of executive clemency; and of the controversy that these issues raised reveals that the history of the death penalty in North Carolina, the South, and the nation, is much more nuanced. Concerns about pain and its effects on an audience inspired lawmakers to try to make executions less painful and less visible. North Carolina became among the nation's first adopters of the electric chair and the gas chamber, but failed to dull public interest in executions and focused the conversation about the death penalty on methods rather than motivations. The racism of the Jim Crow South informed the death penalty, and North Carolina disproportionately executed African Americans, especially those who committed crimes against whites. However, all-white juries could show even African Americans accused of shocking crimes some leniency, applying a brutal logic that revealed the flexibility of the racial caste system. In an era when murder, rape, burglary, and arson carried mandatory death sentences, juries showed mercy by withholding guilty verdicts, formally recommending life sentences, following a guilty verdict with petitions to the governor for clemency. North Carolinians knew that their death penalty was capricious, and they exploited it to introduce mercy into the process. All the while, some North Carolinians were trying to persuade their fellow citizens to reject death as punishment. This dissertation invites a reconsideration of vengeance, justice, and race in one southern state. The death penalty's history in North Carolina is one of anxieties and ambivalence as much as racism and vengeance.
Kotch, Seth. (Creator)
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (William Fitzhugh), 1959- (Thesis advisor)
Thesis
Text
uuid:a403f50c-2ed0-43ca-bd67-d0bf45a3b1ba
eng
The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.
Open access
Unduly_harsh_and_unworkably_rigid_the_death_penal
application/pdf
6419512
yes
2020-05-30T00:00:00