In the last year or two, a remarkable shift has taken place. Minds have begun to change, or at least open. The Republican governor of Illinois, George Ryan, declared a moratorium on executions in his state. The New Hampshire legislature repealed the death penalty, only to have Governor Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, veto the bill. George Will and Pat Robertson have expressed reservations about the death penalty.
Polls show a sizable drop in public support for capital punishment.
Ryan's action, in particular, has had a ripple effect. These developments suggest that despite the federal government's near-celebration of McVeigh's execution, something has changed the political calculus on what used to be an intractable issue. That was one of the questions on my mind as I approached three recent books on executions in America. Proximity to Death, by historian William S. McFeely, is the best of these. McFeely's book is a valuable corrective to the demonization that dominates most public discussion of crime, particularly the death penalty.