As noted in the text, it appears attitudes towards the death penalty are shifting here in America. Additionally, we are one of the few industrialized countries that still use capital punishment. Take a look at the Facts About the Death PenaltyLinks to an external site. provided by the Death Penalty Information Center, and do a little research on your own prior to addressing the following:
Discuss what the current view on the death penalty is in America. What trends and facts were noteworthy? What are some reasons for abolishing it? Finally, in your opinion, is there a more effective form of punishment that is perhaps used elsewhere in the world?
Once again, remember this IS A SAFE SPACE! Thus, do not be rude, condescending, or combative. No matter your stance, your opinion is important and you are valued!!!
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21 18
11 17
22 2523
20
28
35 39
4343 46
52
37 42
53
6059 65
71 66
85
98
68 74
45
56
31
38
31
14
23
16 11
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1818 21
5 2102010
Updated: November 15, 2023 DEATH PENALTY STATES (27) Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Florida Georgia Idaho Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Wyoming U.S. Gov’t U.S. Military
NON-DEATH PENALTY STATES (23) Alaska Colorado Connecticut Delaware Hawaii Illinois Iowa Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota New Hampshire† New Jersey New Mexico New York North Dakota Rhode Island Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin District of Columbia † 1 prisoner remains on death row.
NUMBER OF EXECUTIONS SINCE 1976: 1579
Other 1.8%
White 55.7%
Latinx 8.4%
Black 34.0%
Other 2%
White 75%
Latinx 7%
Black 16%
• White: 880 • Black: 537 • Latinx: 133 • Other: 29
More than 75% of the murder victims in cases resulting in an execution were white, even though nationally only 50% of murder victims generally are white.
RACE OF DEFENDANTS EXECUTED RACE OF VICTIMS IN DEATH PENALTY CASES
DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION CENTER Facts about the Death Penalty
1701 K St. NW, Suite 205 Washington, DC 20006
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org [email protected]
@DPInfoCtr facebook.com/DeathPenaltyInfo
Persons Executed for Interracial Murders
Other 3%
Latinx 14%
Black 41%
White 42%
Race of Death Row Prisoners and Death Row Prisoners by State Source: The Legal Defense Fund, “Death Row USA” (January 1, 2023). The combined state totals are slightly higher than the reported national total. That is because a few prisoners are sentenced to death in more than one state. Those prisoners are included in each state’s totals, but only once in the national total.
California 665 Tennessee 47 Kansas 9
Florida 313 U.S. Gov’t 44 Idaho 8
Texas 192 Oklahoma 40 Indiana 8
Alabama 167 Georgia 41 Utah 7
North Carolina 140 South Carolina 36 U.S. Military 4
Ohio 129 Mississippi 36 Montana 2
Pennsylvania 123 Arkansas 28 New Hampshire 1
Arizona 114 Kentucky 26 South Dakota 1
Louisiana 63 Missouri 18 Oregon 0
Nevada 62 Nebraska 11 Wyoming 0
TOTAL: 2,333
DEATH ROW PRISONERS BY STATE: January 1, 2023DEATH ROW PRISONERS BY RACE
FL IL TX LA NC AZ OH OK PA AL CA GA MS MO NM MA TN IN MD NV SC AR DE ID KY MT NE OR VA WA
11111111122223344 7777
111111111212 16
22
30 • Since 1973, more than 195 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence.
• An average of 3.94 wrongly convicted death-row prisoners have been exonerated each year since 1973.
Death Row Exonerations By State Total: 195
INNOCENCE
RECENT STUDIES ON RACE
White Def./ Black Victim
Black Def./ White Victim
305
21
• Jurors in Washington state are three times more likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant than for a white defendant in a similar case. (Prof. K. Beckett, Univ. of Washington, 2014).
• In Louisiana, the odds of a death sentence were 97% higher for those whose victim was white than for those whose victim was black. (Pierce & Radelet, Louisiana Law Review, 2011).
• A study in California found that those convicted of killing whites were more than 3 times as likely to be sentenced to death as those convicted of killing blacks and more than 4 times more likely as those convicted of killing Latinos. (Pierce & Radelet, Santa Clara Law Review, 2005).
• A comprehensive study of the death penalty in North Carolina found that the odds of receiving a death sentence rose by 3.5 times among those defendants whose victims were white. (Prof. Jack Boger and Dr. Isaac Unah, University of North Carolina, 2001).
• In 96% of states where there have been reviews of race and the death penalty, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. (Prof. Baldus report to the ABA, 1998).
Lack of law enforcement resource Drug/Alcohol abuse
Family problems/child abuse Lack of programs for mentally ill
Crowded courts Ineffective prosecution
Too many guns Gangs
Insufficient use of the death penalty 2 3
5 6 7
12 14
20 20
28 states plus the US government use lethal injection as their primary method. Some states utilizing lethal injection have other methods available as backups. New Hampshire abolished the death penalty in 2019, but the law was not retroactive, leaving one prisoner on death row and the lethal injection protocol intact.
What Interferes with Effective Law Enforcement?
EXECUTIONS SINCE 1976 BY METHOD USED
1399 Lethal Injection
163 Electrocution
11 Gas Chamber
3 Hanging
3 Firing Squad
DETERRENCE
• A report by the National Research Council, titled Deterrence and the Death Penalty, stated that studies claiming that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on murder rates are “fundamentally flawed” and should not be used when making policy decisions (2012).
• A DPIC study of 30 years of FBI Uniform Crime Report homicide data found that the South has consistently had by far the highest murder rate. The South accounts for more than 80% of executions. The Northeast, which has fewer than 0.5% of all executions, has consistently had the lowest murder rate.
• A 2009 poll commissioned by DPIC found police chiefs ranked the death penalty last among ways to reduce violent crime. The police chiefs also considered the death penalty the least efficient use of taxpayers’ money.
South
Midwest
West
Northeast
Nat’l 6.5
4.5
5.2
7.0
8.0
Murder Rates per 100,000 (2020)
MENTAL DISABILITIES
• Intellectual Disabilities: In 2002, the Supreme Court held in Atkins v. Virginia that it is unconstitutional to execute defendants with 'mental retardation.' • Mental Illness: The American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and the American Bar
Association have endorsed resolutions calling for an exemption of the severely mentally ill.
DEATH SENTENCING
Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Sentences 153 166 151 138 140 123 126 120 118 114 85 82 83 74 49 31 39 43 34 18 18 21 Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics: “Capital Punishment, 2013.” 2014 – 2018 figure from DPIC research.
295 death sentences were imposed in the U.S. in 1998. The number of death sentences per year has dropped dramatically since then.
JUVENILES
WOMEN
• In 2005, the Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons struck down the death penalty for juveniles. Since 1976, 22 defendants had been executed for offenses committed as juveniles.
• There were 50 women on death row as of October 1, 2022. This constitutes 2.12% of the total death row population. (The Legal Defense Fund, October 1, 2022). 18 women have been executed since 1976.
EXECUTIONS BY REGION*
South
Midwest
West
Northeast
Texas 585
4
89
198
1288 State Tot 2023 2022 State Tot 2023 2022 State Tot 2023 2022
TX 585 7 5 LA 28 0 0 WA 5 0 0 OK 122 3 5 MS 22 0 1 NE 4 0 0 VA 113 0 0 IN 20 0 0 PA 3 0 0 FL 105 6 0 DE 16 0 0 KY 3 0 0 MO 97 4 2 US GOVT 16 0 0 MT 3 0 0 GA 76 0 0 CA 13 0 0 ID 3 0 0 AL 71 1 2 TN 13 0 0 OR 2 0 0 OH 56 0 0 IL 12 0 0 NM 1 0 0 NC 43 0 0 NV 12 0 0 CO 1 0 0 SC 43 0 0 UT 7 0 0 WY 1 0 0 AZ 40 0 3 MD 5 0 0 CT 1 0 0 AR 31 0 0 SD 5 0 0
EXECUTIONS BY STATE SINCE 1976
*Federal executions are listed in the region in which the crime was committed.
Percent Ranking Item as One of Top Two or Three
PUBLIC OPINION AND THE DEATH PENALTY
The Death Penalty Information Center has available more extensive reports on a variety of issues, including: • “Doomed to Repeat: The Legacy of Race in Tennessee’s Contemporary Death Penalty” (June 2023) • “The Death Penalty in 2022: Year-End Report” (December 2022) • “Deeply Rooted: How Racial History Informs Oklahoma’s Death Penalty” (October 2022) • “DPIC Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic” (February 2021) • “Enduring Injustice: the Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty” (September 2020) • “Behind the Curtain: Secrecy and the Death Penalty in the United States” (November 2018) • “Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty” (November 2015) • “The 2% Death Penalty: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All” (October 2013) • “Struck By Lightning: The Continuing Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty 35 Years After Its Reinstatement in 1976” (June 2011) • “Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis” (October 2009) • “A Crisis of Confidence: Americans' Doubts About the Death Penalty” (2007) • “Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death with Only Half the Truth” (2005)
Life without parole 60%
Death penalty 36%
No opinion 4%
• A 2019 poll by Gallup found that a clear majority of voters (60%) would choose a punishment other than the death penalty for murder.
COSTS OF THE DEATH PENALTY
Support for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
• Capital trials cost more than non-capital cases because of higher costs for prosecution and defense lawyers; time consuming pre-trial investigation; lengthy jury selection process for death-qualification; enhanced security requirements; longer trials because of bifurcated proceedings; solitary confinement incarceration; and necessary appeals to ensure fairness.
• An economic analysis of independent research studies completed in 15 death penalty states from 2001 – 2017 found that the average difference in case-level costs for seeking the death penalty was just over $700,000. Report of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, Table 1 at p.233 (2017).
• Oklahoma capital cases cost, on average, 3.2 times more than non-capital cases. (Study prepared by Peter A. Collins, Matthew J. Hickman, and Robert C. Boruchowitz, with research support by Alexa D. O’Brien, for the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, 2017.)
• Defense costs for death penalty trials in Kansas averaged about $400,000 per case, compared to $100,000 per case when the death penalty was not sought. (Kansas Judicial Council, 2014).
• A study in California revealed that the cost of the death penalty in the state has been over $4 billion since 1978. Study considered pre-trial and trial costs, costs of automatic appeals and state habeas corpus petitions, costs of federal habeas corpus appeals, and costs of incarceration on death row. (Alarcon & Mitchell, 2011).
• A report by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in 2010 found that seeking a federal death sentence costs 8 times more than seeking a life sentence. Jon B. Gould and Lisa Greenman, Update on the Cost and Quality of Defense Representation in Federal Death Penalty Cases (2010) at https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/fdpc2010.pdf
• Gallup Americans Now Support Life in Prison Over Death Penalty
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
1940 1950
1960 1970
1980 1990
2000 2010
2022
% Favor % Oppose % No Opinion
Americans’ Support for Death Penalty Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?
• Gallup Steady 55% of Americans Support Death Penalty for Murderers
55%
42%
3%