The first federal executions in 17 years were staged for Trump’s re-election campaign

In 1972 the death penalty was effectively outlawed in the US: why then did Daniel Lewis Lee become the first of three men to be executed by the state last week? Holly Baxter explains

Daniel Lewis Lee is a former white supremacist and his execution was a PR stunt (AP)

In 1972, the United States outlawed the death penalty. Three petitioners – one who had been convicted of murder, and two of rape, in the states of Georgia and Texas – brought a successful case to the Supreme Court arguing that capital punishment constituted “cruel and unusual punishment”.

Notably, the three men who brought their case to court were black, and the justices who decided to vote against further use of the death penalty agreed that its use was not uniform and seemed to be brought disproportionately against people who were poor, black, or members of minority groups. This was important, because it allowed the balance to tip towards “unusual” rather than just “cruel”: for a punishment to violate the Eighth and 14th Amendments in the US Constitution, it has to be cruel and unusual, and any action which involves discrimination based on race, class, religion, gender or any other protected characteristic becomes unusual. Few would argue that the death penalty is not a cruel punishment; indeed, many would argue that that was the point.

The judgment was controversial, and it was split: five justices on the Supreme Court voted to effectively ban the death penalty, and four voted to keep it. The successful five wrote more than 200 pages explaining their decision in full expectation of there being an uproar.