The Penalty is Death

The Penalty is Death
Author: Marlin Shipman
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2002
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0826263054

In 1872 Susan Eberhart was convicted of murder for helping her lover to kill his wife. The Atlanta Constitution ran a story about her hanging in Georgia that covered slightly more than four full columns of text. In an editorial sermon about her, the Constitution said that Miss Eberhart not only committed murder, but also committed adultery and "violated the sanctity of marriage." An 1890 article in the Elko Independent said of Elizabeth Potts, who was hanged for murder, "To her we look for everything that is gentle and kind and tender; and we can scarcely conceive her capable of committing the highest crime known to the law." Indeed, at the time, this attitude was also applied to women in general. By 1998 the press's and society's attitudes had changed dramatically. A columnist from Texas wrote that convicted murderess Karla Faye Tucker should not be spared just because she was a woman. The author went on to say that women could be just as violent and aggressive as men; the idea that women are defenseless and need men's protection "is probably the last vestige of institutionalized sexism that needs to be rubbed out."

Women and Capital Punishment in America, 1840-1899

Women and Capital Punishment in America, 1840-1899
Author: Kerry Segrave
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2008-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0786438231

Perhaps the single medium in which women have been consistently treated as equal to men is the American judicial system. Although the system has met with enormous public condemnation, equality under the law has justified the legal execution of nearly six hundred American women since 1632. This book profiles the lives and cases of selected women sentenced to capital punishment in America between 1840 and 1899, most of whom were executed by hanging. The book is divided into chapters by decades, chronologically following a summary of the long and heated debate regarding women and capital punishment. Also evident is the influence of the 1870s women's rights movement on the issue. Each chapter concludes with a comprehensive list of all women executed in the United States during the respective decade, specifying age, ethnicity and criminal conviction.

Women and Capital Punishment in the United States

Women and Capital Punishment in the United States
Author: David V. Baker
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2015-12-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0786499508

The history of the execution of women in the United States has largely been ignored and scholars have given scant attention to gender issues in capital punishment. This historical analysis examines the social, political and economic contexts in which the justice system has put women to death, revealing a pattern of patriarchal domination and female subordination. The book includes a discussion of condemned women granted executive clemency and judicial commutations, an inquiry into women falsely convicted in potentially capital cases and a profile of the current female death row population.

The End of Public Execution

The End of Public Execution
Author: Michael Ayers Trotti
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2022-11-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469670429

Before 1850, all legal executions in the South were performed before crowds that could number in the thousands; the last legal public execution was in 1936. This study focuses on the shift from public executions to ones behind barriers, situating that change within our understandings of lynching and competing visions of justice and religion. Intended to shame and intimidate, public executions after the Civil War had quite a different effect on southern Black communities. Crowds typically consisting of as many Black people as white behaved like congregations before a macabre pulpit, led in prayer and song by a Black minister on the scaffold. Black criminals often proclaimed their innocence and almost always their salvation. This turned the proceedings into public, mixed-race, and mixed-gender celebrations of Black religious authority and devotion. In response, southern states rewrote their laws to eliminate these crowds and this Black authority, ultimately turning to electrocutions in the bowels of state penitentiaries. As a wave of lynchings crested around the turn of the twentieth century, states transformed the ways that the South's white-dominated governments controlled legal capital punishment, making executions into private affairs witnessed only by white people.

The Hanging of Susan Eberhart

The Hanging of Susan Eberhart
Author: Fay Burnett
Publisher:
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2018-08-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9781720550365

In 1873, Georgia Governor James M. Smith insured that justice prevailed in Preston, Georgia. Enoch F. Spann and his paramour Susan Eberhart were tried and convicted in the murder of Spann's elderly, invalid wife. One year later, the two were hanged. But, it was not so easy to execute a woman in Georgia, especially a white woman. In the case of Susan Eberhart, the public cried out for mercy, but to no avail. A number of people were affected by the Governor's decision to withhold clemency, including the Governor himself. This tragic story exemplifies the classic struggle between justice and mercy. However in this case, the underlying themes of poverty, ignorance and mental illness complicate the struggle. The "Atlanta Daily Sun," a publication owned by Alexander H. Stephens, (former Vice-President of the Confederacy), described this story as "the most interesting case of crime that ever occurred in Georgia, and which is certainly one of the strangest in history of crimes. May we never hear of the like again." But, we did hear of the case again. The story of Susan Eberhart is one that simply "won't die." Her name continues to be invoked whenever a woman is scheduled for execution in Georgia. Dr. Fay Stapleton Burnett, a native of Metter, Georgia, is a retired dentist and first time author. Her passions are Georgia history, genealogy, and visiting St. Simons Island, Lake Russell, and all points in between. A "multi-generational Baptist," she is married to Rev. Brock Burnett, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Winder, Georgia. She shares her extensive research on this case based on historic documents. The author discovered this story through the involvement of her Great-Great-Grandfather, Maj. George Lawson Stapleton, Jr. "I have examined your book for several hours, and want to congratulate you for the prodigious research you have done on the crime and the punishment of the perpetrators. I don't think you have left any stone unturned in this notable effort. The book will be a treasure for any future historian who wishes to report on these events. Both I personally and The Carter Center have long condemned capital punishment as unfairly applied, often in error, unnecessary and counterproductive, and I have expressed these views in several of my books. I hope your book will help to end this barbarous policy in America." - Former President Jimmy Carter

Susan Eberhart

Susan Eberhart
Author: Karan B. Pittman
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2018-08-29
Genre: Capital punishment
ISBN: 9781490910031

A tale of intrigue and murder set in rural Webster County, Georgia, in the 1870s. Enoch and Sarah Spann hired a young girl to come into their household. The intervening tragedy that occurred with Susan Eberhart and the Spanns is one that is still questioned to this day.

The Cases of Susan Dare

The Cases of Susan Dare
Author: Mignon G. Eberhart
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2012-05-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453257276

DIVA mystery author finds her knowledge of murder put to practical use/divDIV/divDIVInside the lovely head of Susan Dare, grisly murder lurks. A mystery author who makes her living providing tidy solutions to imaginary crimes, Dare is enjoying a much-needed vacation when the mood at her host’s house turns sour. Ugly secrets lurk in the Frame family’s past, and jealousy stirs beneath the surface of their tranquil country estate. Dare makes plans to leave before her hosts turn on each other, but she is too late. On the morning of her departure, a gunshot echoes through the fog. Only a beautiful author with a head full of murder mysteries can pinpoint the killer./divDIV /divDIVIn this handful of elegant, classic stories, Mignon Eberhart’s amateur detective proves her worth time and time again. Decades before Murder, She Wrote, Eberhart realized that those who write mysteries can solve them too./div

Ticklin' the Funny Bone of a Georgia Cracker

Ticklin' the Funny Bone of a Georgia Cracker
Author: Fay Jones Stapleton Burnett
Publisher:
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2018
Genre: Georgia
ISBN: 9781727237214

"Georgia newspapers of the 1800s were almost always dotted with various anecdotes and bits of humor. The author has gathered this humor from a number of towns throughout the state, and put it in book form. In addition to many chuckles, this collection helps give insight into the changes in society since the 19th century ... for better or worse!" -- Back cover.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
Author: Ann Patchett
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2013-11-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1408842408

'So compellingly personal you feel you're looking over her shoulder as she sits down to write' New York Times 'Electrically entertaining ... Funny, generous, spirited and kind' The Times This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is an irresistible blend of literature and memoir revealing the big experiences and little moments that shaped Ann Patchett as a daughter, wife, friend and writer. Here, Ann Patchett shares entertaining and moving stories about her tumultuous childhood, her painful early divorce, the excitement of selling her first book, driving a Winnebago from Montana to Yellowstone Park, her joyous discovery of opera, scaling a six-foot wall in order to join the Los Angeles Police Department, the gradual loss of her beloved grandmother, starting her own bookshop in Nashville, her love for her very special dog and, of course, her eventual happy marriage. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a memoir both wide ranging and deeply personal, overflowing with close observation and emotional wisdom, told with wit, honesty and irresistible warmth.