The reversal of civilized opinion on the death penalty during the past century and a half has been truly remarkable. It is an example of law in the process of radical change. 1 As late as 1825 England had no less than 230 capital crimes on its law books. By the turn of the century legislative inroads had reduced the capital list to murder and treason, and, after an attempt to reduce it still further to certain types of murder, the English evolution has come to completion and the death penalty has now been abolished for all crimes. 2 Although in England the death penalty, wherever applicable by statute, was mandatory on the trial process, the English jury played a major role in its gradual attenuation. On many occasions the jury simply refused to convict a clearly guilty defendant in order to t Copyright 0 1966 by Little, Brown and Company. This article is a chapter from the authors' forthcoming book THE AMERICAN JURY, which is to be published by Little, Brown and Company in September, and which is an outgrowth of the work of the University of Chicago Law School Project on Law and the Behavioral Sciences. The authors anticipate the eventual publication of two additional books describing the results of their studies of jury behavior. The reader is advised of the deletion of cross-references to other sections of the work and of citations of specific research materials of the authors. A review of THE AMERICAN JURY is to be found in this issue at p. 884. 0 With the collaboration of
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