pt.1. Miscarriages of justice and innocence -- Errors in capital cases and what can be done about them -- Scrutinizing the death penalty: state death penalty study commissions and their recommendations -- Themes of wrongful executions in the post-Furman era -- Making it work: compensation for the wrongfully convicted -- A painless cocktail? The lethal injection controversy -- pt.2. Death penalty opinion, media access to executions, consensual executions, and the relationship between lynching and the death penalty -- Assessing scholarly opinion of capital punishment: the experts speak -- Police managers' attitudes toward capital punishment -- The United States can't televise an execution because it will make condemned men feel bad about the death penalty: issues raised by the suit to make McVeigh's execution public -- "Let's do it!": an analysis of consensual executions -- Some hypotheses about capital punishment and lynching