When Bundy buckles up -- From rehabilitation to retribution -- "Inside your daddy's house": capital punishment and creeping nihilism in the atomic age -- "The respect which is due them as men": the rise of retribution in a polarizing nation -- Executable subjects -- Fixed risks and free souls: judging and executing capital defendants after Gregg v. Georgia -- Shock therapy: the rehabilitation of capital punishment -- The killing state -- "A country worthy of heroes": the old West and the new -- American death penalty -- Father knows best: capital punishment as a family value -- Epilogue: disabling freedom.