Perry on Whether Capital Punishment is "Cruel and Unusual"

Michael J. Perry (Emory University School of Law) has posted Is Capital Punishment ‘Cruel and Unusual’? (The Constitutional Morality of the United States: Human Rights and Judicial Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The right of every human being – every human being without exception – not to be subjected to any punishment that is “cruel, inhuman or degrading” is an international human right. A version of that right is entrenched in the constitutional law of the United States: the right of every human being – again, without exception – not to be subjected to any punishment that is “cruel and unusual”. In this paper, I inquire both whether capital punishment is “cruel, inhuman or degrading” and, next, whether capital punishment is “cruel and unusual”.