In their book Capital Punishment and the American Agenda, Franklin Zimring
and Gordon Hawkins open with the lines: "The pattern is so simple
it is stunning. Every Western industrial nation has stopped executing crim-
inals, except the United States." ³ Thoughtful people have to be concerned
about this difference between the behavior of America and that of other
nations. Is U.S. policy right and other policies wrong? Or, do significantly
different circumstances justify these differences in policy? If so, what are
those circumstances? Part Two of our book, a significant revision of the
first edition, ⁴ is in an effort to stay abreast of these developments.

The vital issues surrounding the more specific question of capital pun-
ishment are, in part, a mirror image of issues concerning the question of
punishment in general. This debate again pits retributivists against utilitar-
ians, the former tending to support capital punishment and the latter fre-
quently, though not always, opposing it. Additional issues are involved,
however, and the essays added to this volume address many of these.

M. L. Radelet, H. A. Bedau, and C. E. Putnam lead off Part Two
with an attempt to draw the reader into the capital punishment debate by
raising the specter of killing the innocent. This essay is one of two selections
taken from an important recent publication by these three researchers which
serves both to demonstrate how often the innocent are convicted and to
underline the horror of a wrongful conviction in a capital case.

The second and third essays are historical in nature, providing a broad
context in which the current debate is better understood. The Information
Plus essay (chapter 8) provides a general history of capital punishment in
the United States from the settlement of the colonies to the more recent
decisions of the Supreme Court. J. Gordon Melton examines the role of
religious groups and religious attitudes in the history of capital punishment.
He also discusses various biblical perspectives on capital punishment.

Ernest van den Haag has been a prominent defender of capital pun-
ishment, offering well thought-out arguments in its defense. Two of his essays
are included in this volume: The first of these defends capital punishment
against the charges of discriminatory application and miscarriages of jus-
tice, and sets forth his primary case for capital punishment, one that ap-
peals to both retributive and utilitarian arguments.

Lloyd Steffen's "Casting the First Stone" argues against capital pun-
ishment on specifically Christian grounds. He appeals to the testimony of
Jesus in support of the claim that those who engage in capital punishment
arrogate to themselves "a power that was not theirs to assume . . . the power
to destroy the life of a person who was a gift from God."

As van den Haag is the academician usually associated with defend-
ing capital punishment, Hugo Bedau is the academician usually associated
with opposing it. Over the years he has written extensively against capital
punishment. The second essay by Bedau included here, from his recent work

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