Cairns examines how Graham's case became a touchstone in the on-going debate over capital punishment
Kathleen A. Cairns is a lecturer in the Department of History at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She is the author of The Enigma Woman: The Death Sentence of Nellie May Madison (Nebraska, 2007) and Hard Time at Tehachapi: California¿s First Women¿s Prison.