Lawrence B. Goodheart is professor of history at the University of Connecticut, Hartford, and author of Mad Yankees: The Hartford Retreat for the Insane and Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry (University of Massachusetts Press, 2003).
"The first comprehensive, detailed history of capital punishment in Connecticut. Framed by race, poverty, otherness, and Yankee culture, Goodheart tells in rich detail the troubling story of Connecticut's executions over nearly four centuries."--Alan Rogers, author of Murder and the Death Penalty in Massachusetts "Connecticut and New Hampshire are the only two states in the Northeast that retain the death penalty. Further, the Nutmeg State is the only one to have executed a prisoner in decades. Historian Goodheart does not opine why his state is distinctive in this regard. However, he provides a sweeping, highly readable, organized analysis of all the state's 158 executions from 1639 to 2005. In the process, the books rises in significance from being a notable regional history to one providing a broader assessment on the pleadings for and against state-sanctioned death. . . . Readers learn why capital punishment cases in the US today are so difficult to resolve and, even when all constitutional impediments are overcome, the solemn effects are ungratifying. Highly recommended."--Choice
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