America had not executed a criminal for almost a decade. A de facto national moratorium on executions had been formalized in 1972 when the Supreme Court, in Furman v. Georgia, decided 5–4 that the way death was administered violated the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. That same year, in California, the state Supreme Court overturned a death penalty statute signed by then Governor Reagan. The death penalty sentences of the likes of Charles Manson were commuted to life imprisonment—and 70 percent of California voters voted to reinstate it in a referendum. In the summer of
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