Never before has one corporation or entity has been the subject of such broad-reaching punishment by congressional mandate.
At that time, Silver spoke of "broad powers" for punishment allowed him under NBA bylaws but stressed the need for due process.
But most of the time, for most of the history of so-called civilization, it was taken for granted that in order to serve its broader goals, capital punishment had to be public, it had to be spectacular, and it had to be humiliating.
In Alabama or Oklahoma, where there is broad support for capital punishment, it is easy to death-qualify a panel of jurors.
As with drugs and domestic violence, the gambling defendants must plead guilty to be eligible for the diversion program, which gives Justice Farrell broad discretion to defer punishment for up to a year and dismiss charges for those who complete the prescribed treatment regimen.
In a broad critique of capital punishment in Texas, a new report concludes that the state's death penalty system is in dire need of change because of problems like prosecutorial misconduct, racial bias, phony experts and inadequate lawyers for poor defendants.
Finally, deterrence theories are criticised for making the parameters for appropriate punishment excessively broad in allowing that whatever punishment is needed to deter people is the justified punishment.
After high-profile botched executions in Oklahoma and Ohio in 2014, he instructed then-attorney general Eric Holder to begin a broad assessment of capital punishment.
Besides the tragedy of the murder itself, what has made the case remarkable is its reliance on a 1988 state law called the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention (STEP) Act, which gives prosecutors broad powers to intensify punishment.
The Supreme Court overturned that death penalty provision in 1968, and the broader issue of capital punishment itself was in doubt for much of the 1970s.
