The second edition of America's Experiment with Capital Punishment is an updated and expanded version of the comprehensive first edition.  Authored by the country's leading legal and social science scholars, it includes information concerning racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty, wrongful convictions, deterrence, the prediction of future dangerousness, jury decision-making, public opinion about the death penalty, the effects of the capital punishment process on murder victims' and offenders' relatives, death row incarceration, the costs of capital punishment, execution methods, and many other issues.

New legal developments are tracked, including the Supreme Court's 2002 decisions prohibiting the execution of mentally retarded offenders (Atkins vs. Virginia) and requiring juries to find all essential facts supporting sentences of death (Ring vs. Arizona); the moratorium on executions imposed by former Illinois Governor Ryan and Ryan's ensuing commutation in January 2003 of all Illinois prisoners under sentence of death; federal habeas corpus policies; and other changes in death penalty laws and practices.

Two new chapters have been added to the second edition, one by Professor Richard Wilson analyzing international laws and trends in capital punishment and their implications for the United States, and another by Professor Robert Blecker examining the theological and historical roots of the death penalty and their significance to contemporary capital punishment theory and practice. The volume, comprised of 23 individually authored chapters, remains the most current and comprehensive collection available addressing legal, empirical, political, and philosophical aspects of capital punishment in America.