ABSTRACT
The death penalty, although used for a long time in the United States, has generated a lot of cases in the United States Supreme Court only in the last four decades. In the early years, it was assumed that there was nothing constitutionally wrong with it and therefore executions took place without intervention from the courts. It was not until the early 1970s that the constitutionality of the death penalty drew attention from the Court. Prior to that time, the death penalty cases that reached the United States Supreme Court dealt more with the procedure for execution than with the constitutionality of the penalty itself. For example, in 1878, the Court found that execution by firing squad was not cruel and unusual (Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 [1878]). And in 1890, death by electrocution was found not to be cruel and unusual punishment (In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436 [1890]).
