Broadly speaking, there have been three distinct phases in the Court's consideration of the constitutional status of capital punishment. The first, beginning in 1968, was when the Court announced substantial doubts about the constitutional validity of the death penalty; the second, beginning in 1976, involved the Court's attempt to appease those doubts by rationalizing and routinizing the administration of the penalty; and the third, beginning in 1983 and culminating this term in 'McClesky,' consisted of the Court proclaiming the end of its doubts and signaling its intention to turn away from the continuing scrutiny of capital punishment. The persistent internal conflict characterizing the Court's death penalty rulings mirrors concerns about polarized hostility in American society generally. If implacable hostilities run deep in American society, then judicial deference to legislative action appears to invite majority oppression of minorities, in this case through the death penalty. Courts should attempt to demonstrate the falsity of such hostilities in constitutional adjudication. 367 footnotes.