capital punishment research paper example

Death Penalty - Essay Samples And Topic Ideas For Free

The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, remains a contentious issue in many societies. Essays on this topic could explore the moral, legal, and social arguments surrounding the practice, including discussions on retribution, deterrence, and justice. They might delve into historical trends in the application of the death penalty, the potential for judicial error, and the disparities in its application across different demographic groups. Discussions might also explore the psychological impact on inmates, the families involved, and the society at large. They could also analyze the global trends toward abolition or retention of the death penalty and the factors influencing these trends. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to Death Penalty you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Death Penalty and Justice

By now, many of us are familiar with the statement, "an eye for an eye," which came from the bible, so it should be followed as holy writ. Then there was Gandhi, who inspired thousands and said, "an eye for an eye will leave us all blind." This begs the question, which option do we pick to be a good moral agent, in the terms of justice that is. Some states in America practice the death penalty, where some states […]

The Controversy of Death Penalty

The death penalty is a very controversial topic in many states. Although the idea of the death penalty does sound terrifying, would you really want a murderer to be given food and shelter for free? Would you want a murderer to get out of jail and still end up killing another innocent person? Imagine if that murder gets out of jail and kills someone in your family; Wouldn’t you want that murderer to be killed as well? Murderers can kill […]

Stephen Nathanson’s “An Eye for an Eye”

According to Stephen Nathanson's "An Eye for an Eye?", he believes that capital punishment should be immediately abolished and that the principle of punishment, "lex talionis" which correlates to the classic saying "an eye for an eye" is not a valid reason for issuing the death penalty in any country, thus, abolishment of Capital Punishment should follow. Throughout the excerpt from his book, Nathanson argues against this principle believing that one, it forces us to "commit highly immoral actions”raping a […]

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Does the Death Penalty Effectively Deter Crime?

The death penalty in America has been effective since 1608. Throughout the years following the first execution, criminal behaviors have begun to deteriorate. Capital punishment was first formed to deter crime and treason. As a result, it increased the rate of crime, according to researchers. Punishing criminals by death does not effectively deter crime because criminals are not concerned with consequences, apprehension, and judges are not willing to pay the expenses. During the stage of mens rea, thoughts of committing […]

The Death Penalty: Right or Wrong?

The death penalty has been a controversial topic throughout the years and now more than ever, as we argue; Right or Wrong? Moral or Immoral? Constitutional or Unconstitutional? The death penalty also known as capital punishment is a legal process where the state justice sentences an individual to be executed as punishment for a crime committed. The death penalty sentence strongly depends on the severity of the crime, in the US there are 41 crimes that can lead to being […]

About Carlton Franklin

In most other situations, the long-unsolved Westfield Murder would have been a death penalty case. A 57-year-old legal secretary, Lena Triano, was found tied up, raped, beaten, and stabbed in her New Jersey home. A DNA sample from her undergarments connected Carlton Franklin to the scene of the crime. However, fortunately enough for Franklin, he was not convicted until almost four decades after the murder and, in an unusual turn of events, was tried in juvenile court. Franklin was fifteen […]

About the Death Penalty

The death penalty has been a method used as far back as the Eighteenth century B.C. The use of the death penalty was for punishing people for committing relentless crimes. The severity of the punishment were much more inferior in comparison to modern day. These inferior punishments included boiling live bodies, burning at the stake, hanging, and extensive use of the guillotine to decapitate criminals. In the ancient days no laws were established to dictate and regulate the type of […]

The Death Penalty should not be Legal

Imagine you hit your sibling and your mom hits you back to teach that you shouldn't be hitting anyone. Do you really learn not to be violent from that or instead do you learn how it is okay for moms or dads to hit their children in order to teach them something? This is exactly how the death penalty works. The death penalty has been a form of punishment for decades. There are several methods of execution and those are […]

Effectively Solving Society’s Criminality

Has one ever wondered if the person standing or sitting next to them has the potential to be a murderer or a rapist? What do those who are victimized personally or have suffered from a tragic event involving a loved-one or someone near and dear to their heart, expect from the government? Convicted felons of this nature and degree of unlawfulness should be sentenced to death. Psychotic killers and rapists need the ultimate consequences such as the death penalty for […]

Religious Values and Death Penalty

Religious and moral values tell us that killing is wrong. Thou shall not kill. To me, the death penalty is inhumane. Killing people makes us like the murderers that most of us despise. No imperfect system should have the right to decide who lives and who dies. The government is made up of imperfect humans, who make mistakes. The only person that should be able to take life, is god. "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind". […]

Abolishment of the Death Penalty

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to relate many different criminological theories in regard to capital punishment. We relate many criminological theories such as; cognitive theory, deviant place theory, latent trait theory, differential association theory, behavioral theory, attachment theory, lifestyle theory, and biosocial theory. This paper empirically analyzes the idea that capital punishment is inhumane and should be abolished. We analyze this by taking into consideration false convictions, deterrence of crime, attitudes towards capital punishment, mental illness and juvenile […]

Punishment and the Nature of the Crime

When an individual commits a crime then he/she is given punishment depending on the nature of the crime committed. The US's way of giving punishment to an offender has been criticized for many years. There are 2 types of cases; civil and criminal cases. In civil cases, most of the verdict comprises of jail time or fine amount to be paid. These are not as severe except the one related to money laundering and forgery. On the other hand, criminal […]

The Death Penalty and Juveniles

Introduction: In today's society, many juveniles are being sent to trial without having the chance of getting a fair trial as anyone else would. Many citizens would see juveniles as dangerous individuals, but in my opinion how a teenager acts at home starts at home. Punishing a child for something that could have been solved at home is something that should not have to get worse by giving them the death penalty. The death penalty should not be imposed on […]

Is the Death Penalty “Humane”

What’s the first thing that pops up in your mind when you hear the words Capital Punishment? I’m assuming for most people the first thing that pops up is a criminal sitting on a chair, with all limbs tied down, and some type of mechanism connected to their head. Even though this really isn't the way that it is done, I do not blame people for imagining that type of image because that is how movies usually portray capital punishment. […]

Euthanasia and Death Penalty

Euthanasia and death penalty are two controversy topics, that get a lot of attention in today's life. The subject itself has the roots deep in the beginning of the humankind. It is interesting and maybe useful to learn the answer and if there is right or wrong in those actions. The decision if a person should live or die depends on the state laws. There are both opponents and supporters of the subject. However different the opinions are, the state […]

The Death Penalty is not Worth the Cost

The death penalty is a government practice, used as a punishment for capital crimes such as treason, murder, and genocide to name a few. It has been a controversial topic for many years some countries still use it while others don't. In the United States, each state gets to choose whether they consider it to be legal or not. Which is why in this country 30 states allow it while 20 states have gotten rid of it. It is controversial […]

Ineffectiveness of Death Penalty

Death penalty as a means of punishing crime and discouraging wrong behaviour has suffered opposition from various fronts. Religious leaders argue that it is morally wrong to take someone's life while liberal thinkers claim that there are better ways to punish wrong behaviour other than the death penalty. This debate rages on while statistically, Texas executes more individuals than any other state in the United States of America. America itself also has the highest number of death penalty related deaths […]

Is the Death Penalty Morally Right?

There have been several disputes on whether the death penalty is morally right. Considering the ethical issues with this punishment can help distinguish if it should be denied or accepted. For example, it can be argued that a criminal of extreme offenses should be granted the same level of penance as their crime. During the duration of their sentencing they could repent on their actions and desire another opportunity of freedom. The death penalty should be outlawed because of too […]

Why the Death Penalty is Unjust

Capital punishment being either a justifiable law, or a horrendous, unjust act can be determined based on the perspective of different worldviews. In a traditional Christian perspective, the word of God given to the world in The Holy Bible should only be abided by. The Holy Bible states that no man (or woman) should shed the blood of another man (or woman). Christians are taught to teach a greater amount of sacrifice for the sake of the Lord. Social justice […]

The Death Penalty and People’s Opinions

The death penalty is a highly debated topic that often divided opinion amongst people all around the world. Firstly, let's take a look at our capital punishments, with certain crimes, come different serving times. Most crimes include treason, espionage, murder, large-scale drug trafficking, and murder towards a juror, witness, or a court officer in some cases. These are a few examples compared to the forty-one federal capital offenses to date. When it comes to the death penalty, there are certain […]

The Debate of the Death Penalty

Capital punishment is a moral issue that is often scrutinized due to the taking of someone’s life. This is in large part because of the views many have toward the rule of law or an acceptance to the status quo. In order to get a true scope of the death penalty, it is best to address potential biases from a particular ethical viewpoint. By looking at it from several theories of punishment, selecting the most viable theory makes it a […]

The History of the Death Penalty

The History of the death penalty goes as far back as ancient China and Babylon. However, the first recorded death sentence took place in 16th Century BC Egypt, where executions were carried out with an ax. Since the very beginning, people were treated according to their social status; those wealthy were rarely facing brutal executions; on the contrary, most of the population was facing cruel executions. For instance, in the 5th Century BC, the Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets […]

Death Penalty is Immoral

Let's say your child grabs a plate purposely. You see them grab the plate, smash it on the ground and look you straight in the eyes. Are they deserving of a punishment? Now what if I say your child is three years old. A three year old typically doesn't know they have done something wrong. But since your child broke that one plate, your kid is being put on death row. You may be thinking, that is too harsh of […]

The Death Penalty in the United States

The United States is the "land of the free, home of the brave" and the death penalty (American National Anthem). Globally, America stands number five in carrying executions (Lockie). Since its resurrection in 1976, the year in which the Supreme Court reestablished the constitutionality of the death penalty, more than 1,264 people have been executed, predominantly by the medium of lethal injection (The Guardian). Almost all death penalty cases entangle the execution of assassins; although, they may also be applied […]

Cost of the Death Penalty

The death penalty costs more than life in prison. According to Fox News correspondent Dan Springer, the State of California spent 4 billion dollars to execute 13 individuals, in addition to the net spend of an estimated $64,000 per prisoner every year. Springer (2011) documents how the death penalty convictions declined due to economic reasons. The state spends up to 3 times more when seeking a death penalty than when pursuing a life in prison without the possibility of parole. […]

The Solution to the Death Penalty

There has never been a time when the United States of America was free from criminals indulging in killing, stealing, exploiting people, and even selling illegal items. Naturally, America refuses to tolerate the crimes committed by those who view themselves as above the law. Once these convicts are apprehended, they are brought to justice. In the past, these criminals often faced an ultimate punishment: the death penalty. Mercy was a foreign concept due to their underdeveloped understanding of the value […]

Costs: Death Penalty Versus Prison Costs

The Conservatives Concerned Organization challenges the notion that the death penalty is more cost effective compared to prison housing and feeding costs. The organization argues that the death penalty is an expensive lengthy and complicated process concluding that it is not only a bloated program that delays justice and bogs down the enforcement of the law, it is also an inefficient justice process that diverts financial resources from law enforcement programs that could protect individuals and save lives. According to […]

Death Penalty as a Source of Constant Controversy

The death penalty has been a source of almost constant controversy for hundreds of years, splitting the population down the middle with people supporting the death penalty and people that think it is unnecessary. The amount of people that are been against the death penalty has grown in recent years, causing the amount of executions to dwindle down to where there is less than one hundred every year. This number will continue to lessen as more and more people decide […]

Death Penalty is Politically Just?

Being wrongfully accused is unimaginable, but think if you were wrongfully accused and the ultimate punishment was death. Death penalty is one of the most controversial issues in today's society, but what is politically just? When a crime is committed most assume that the only acceptable consequence is to be put to death rather than thinking of another form of punishment. Religiously the death penalty is unfair because the, "USCCB concludes prisoners can change and find redemption through ministry outreach, […]

George Walker Bush and Death Penalty

George Walker Bush, a former U.S. president, and governor of Texas, once spoke, "I don't think you should support the death penalty to seek revenge. I don't think that's right. I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people's lives." The death penalty, or capital punishment, refers to the execution of a criminal convicted of a capital offense. With many criminals awaiting execution on death row, the death penalty has been a debated topic […]

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How To Write an Essay About Death Penalty

Understanding the topic.

When writing an essay about the death penalty, the first step is to understand the depth and complexities of the topic. The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is a legal process where a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. This topic is highly controversial and evokes strong emotions on both sides of the debate. It's crucial to approach this subject with sensitivity and a balanced perspective, acknowledging the moral, legal, and ethical considerations involved. Research is key in this initial phase, as it's important to gather facts, statistics, and viewpoints from various sources to have a well-rounded understanding of the topic. This foundation will set the tone for your essay, guiding your argument and supporting your thesis.

Structuring the Argument

The next step is structuring your argument. In an essay about the death penalty, it's vital to present a clear thesis statement that outlines your stance on the issue. Are you for or against it? What are the reasons behind your position? The body of your essay should then systematically support your thesis through well-structured arguments. Each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of the death penalty, such as its ethical implications, its effectiveness as a deterrent to crime, or the risk of wrongful convictions. Ensure that each point is backed up by evidence and examples, and remember to address counterarguments. This not only shows that you have considered multiple viewpoints but also strengthens your position by demonstrating why these opposing arguments may be less valid.

Exploring Ethical and Moral Dimensions

An essential aspect of writing an essay on the death penalty is exploring its ethical and moral dimensions. This involves delving into philosophical debates about the value of human life, justice, and retribution. It's important to discuss the moral justifications that are often used to defend the death penalty, such as the idea of 'an eye for an eye,' and to critically evaluate these arguments. Equally important is exploring the ethical arguments against the death penalty, including the potential for innocent people to be executed and the question of whether the state should have the power to take a life. This section of the essay should challenge readers to think deeply about their values and the principles of a just society.

Concluding Thoughts

In conclusion, revisit your thesis and summarize the key points made in your essay. This is your final opportunity to reinforce your argument and leave a lasting impression on your readers. Discuss the broader implications of the death penalty in society and consider potential future developments in this area. You might also want to offer recommendations or pose questions that encourage further reflection on the topic. Remember, a strong conclusion doesn't just restate what has been said; it provides closure and offers new insights, prompting readers to continue thinking about the subject long after they have finished reading your essay.

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Expert Commentary

The research on capital punishment: Recent scholarship and unresolved questions

2014 review of research on capital punishment, including studies that attempt to quantify rates of innocence and the potential deterrence effect on crime.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by Alexandra Raphel and John Wihbey, The Journalist's Resource January 5, 2015

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/criminal-justice/research-capital-punishment-key-recent-studies/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

Over the past year the death penalty has again come into focus as a major public policy and political issue, catalyzed by several high-profile events.

The botched execution of convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in 2014 was seen as a potential turning point in the debate, bringing increased attention to the mechanisms by which persons are executed. That was followed by a number of other closely scrutinized cases, and the year ended with few executions relative to years past. On December 31, 2014, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley commuted the sentences of the remaining four prisoners on death row in that state. In 2013, Maryland became the 18th state to abolish the death penalty after Connecticut in 2012 and New Mexico in 2009.

Meanwhile, polling data suggests some softening of public attitudes, though the majority Americans continue to support capital punishment. Gallop noted in October 2014 that the level of public support (60%) is at its lowest in 40 years. A Washington Post -ABC News poll in mid-2014 found that more Americans support life sentences, rather than the death penalty, for convicted murderers. Further, recent polls from the Pew Research Center indicate that only a bare majority of Americans now support capital punishment, 55%, down from 78% in 1996.

Scholarly research sheds light on a number of important aspects of this issue:

False convictions

One key reason for the contentious debate is the concern that states are executing innocent people. How many people are unjustly facing the death penalty? By definition, it is difficult to obtain a reliable answer to this question. Presumably if judges, juries, and law enforcement were always able to conclusively determine who was innocent, those defendants would simply not be convicted in the first place. When capital punishment is the sentence, however, this issue takes on new importance.

Some believe that when it comes to death-penalty cases, this is not a huge cause for concern. In his concurrent opinion in the 2006 Supreme Court case Kansas v. Marsh , Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that the execution error rate was minimal, around 0.027%. However, a 2014 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the figure could be higher. Authors Samuel Gross (University of Michigan Law School), Barbara O’Brien (Michigan State University College of Law), Chen Hu (American College of Radiology) and Edward H. Kennedy (University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine) examine data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Department of Justice relating to exonerations from 1973 to 2004 in an attempt to estimate the rate of false convictions among death row defendants. (Determining innocence with full certainty is an obvious challenge, so as a proxy they use exoneration — “an official determination that a convicted defendant is no longer legally culpable for the crime.”) In short, the researchers ask: If all death row prisoners were to remain under this sentence indefinitely, how many of them would have eventually been found innocent (exonerated)?

Interestingly, the authors also note that advances in DNA identification technology are unlikely to have a large impact on false conviction rates because DNA evidence is most often used in cases of rape rather than homicide. To date, only about 13% of death row exonerations were the result of DNA testing. The Innocence Project , a litigation and public policy organization founded in 1992, has been deeply involved in many such cases.

Death penalty deterrence effects: What do we know?

A chief way proponents of capital punishment defend the practice is the idea that the death penalty deters other people from committing future crimes. For example, research conducted by John J. Donohue III (Yale Law School) and Justin Wolfers (University of Pennsylvania) applies economic theory to the issue: If people act as rational maximizers of their profits or well-being, perhaps there is reason to believe that the most severe of punishments would serve as a deterrent. (The findings of their 2009 study on this issue, “Estimating the Impact of the Death Penalty on Murder,” are inconclusive.) In contrast, one could also imagine a scenario in which capital punishment leads to an increased homicide rate because of a broader perception that the state devalues human life. It could also be possible that the death penalty has no effect at all because information about executions is not diffused in a way that influences future behavior.

In 1978 — two years after the Supreme Court issued its decision reversing a previous ban on the death penalty ( Gregg v. Georgia ) — the National Research Council (NRC) published a comprehensive review of the current research on capital punishment to determine whether one of these hypotheses was more empirically supported than the others. The NRC concluded that “available studies provide no useful evidence on the deterrent effect of capital punishment.”

Researchers have subsequently used a number of methods in an effort to get closer to an accurate estimate of the deterrence effect of the death penalty. Many of the studies have reached conflicting conclusions, however. To conduct an updated review, the NRC formed the Committee on Deterrence and the Death Penalty, comprised of academics from economics departments and public policy schools from institutions around the country, including the Carnegie Mellon University, University of Chicago and Duke University.

In 2012, the Committee published an updated report that concluded that not much had changed in recent decades: “Research conducted in the 30 years since the earlier NRC report has not sufficiently advanced knowledge to allow a conclusion, however qualified, about the effect of the death penalty on homicide rates.” The report goes on to recommend that none of the reviewed reports be used to influence public policy decisions on the death penalty.

Why has the research not been able to provide any definitive answers about the impact of the death penalty? One general challenge is that when it comes to capital punishment, a counter-factual policy is simply not observable. You cannot simultaneously execute and not execute defendants, making it difficult to isolate the impact of the death penalty. The Committee also highlights a number of key flaws in the research designs:

• There are both capital and non-capital punishment options for people charged with serious crimes. So, the relevant question on the deterrent effect of capital punishment specifically “is the differential deterrent effect of execution in comparison with the deterrent effect of other available or commonly used penalties.” None of the studies reviewed by the Committee took into account these severe, but noncapital punishments, which could also have an effect on future behaviors and could confound the estimated deterrence effect of capital punishment.
• “They use incomplete or implausible models of potential murderers’ perceptions of and response to the capital punishment component of a sanction regime”
• “The existing studies use strong and unverifiable assumptions to identify the effects of capital punishment on homicides.”

In a 2012 study, “Deterrence and the Dealth Penalty: Partial Identificaiton Analysis Using Repeated Cross Sections,” authors Charles F. Manski (Northwestern University) and John V. Pepper (University of Virginia) focus on the third challenge. They note: “Data alone cannot reveal what the homicide rate in a state without (with) a death penalty would have been had the state (not) adopted a death penalty statute. Here, as always when analyzing treatment response, data must be combined with assumptions to enable inference on counterfactual outcomes.”

However, even though the authors do not arrive at a definitive conclusion, the National Research Council Committee notes that this type of research holds some value: “Rather than imposing the strong but unsupported assumptions required to identify the effect of capital punishment on homicides in a single model or an ad hoc set of similar models, approaches that explicitly account for model uncertainty may provide a constructive way for research to provide credible albeit incomplete answers.”

Another strategy researchers have taken is to limit the focus of studies on potential short-term effects of the death penalty. In a 2009 paper, “The Short-Term Effects of Executions on Homicides: Deterrence, Displacement, or Both?” authors Kenneth C. Land and Hui Zheng of Duke University, along with Raymond Teske Jr. of Sam Houston State University, examine monthly execution data (1980-2005) from Texas, “a state that has used the death penalty with sufficient frequency to make possible relatively stable estimates of the homicide response to executions.” They conclude that “evidence exists of modest, short-term reductions in the numbers of homicides in Texas in the months of or after executions.” Depending on which model they use, these deterrent effects range from 1.6 to 2.5 homicides.

The NRC’s Committee on Deterrence and the Death Penalty commented on the findings, explaining: “Land, Teske and Zheng (2009) should be commended for distinguishing between periods in Texas when the use of capital punishment appears to have been erratic and when it appears to have been systematic. But they fail to integrate this distinction into a coherently delineated behavioral model that incorporates sanctions regimes, salience, and deterrence. And, as explained above, their claims of evidence of deterrence in the systematic regime are flawed.”

A more recent paper (2012) from the three authors, “The Differential Short-Term Impacts of Executions on Felony and Non-Felony Homicides,” addresses some of these concerns. Published in Criminology and Public Policy , the paper reviews and updates some of their earlier findings by exploring “what information can be gained by disaggregating the homicide data into those homicides committed in the course of another felony crime, which are subject to capital punishment, and those committed otherwise.” The results produce a number of different findings and models, including that “the short-lived deterrence effect of executions is concentrated among non-felony-type homicides.”

Other factors to consider

The question of what kinds of “mitigating” factors should prevent the criminal justice system from moving forward with an execution remains hotly disputed. A 2014 paper published in the Hastings Law Journal , “The Failure of Mitigation?” by scholars at the University of North Carolina and DePaul University, investigates recent executions of persons with possible mental or intellectual disabilities. The authors reviewed 100 cases and conclude that the “overwhelming majority of executed offenders suffered from intellectual impairments, were barely into adulthood, wrestled with severe mental illness, or endured profound childhood trauma.”

Two significant recommendations for reforming the existing process also are supported by some academic research. A 2010 study by Pepperdine University School of Law published in Temple Law Review , “Unpredictable Doom and Lethal Injustice: An Argument for Greater Transparency in Death Penalty Decisions,” surveyed the decision-making process among various state prosecutors. At the request of a state commission, the authors first surveyed California district attorneys; they also examined data from the other 36 states that have the death penalty. The authors found that prosecutors’ capital punishment filing decisions remain marked by local “idiosyncrasies,” meaning that “the very types of unfairness that the Supreme Court sought to eliminate” beginning in 1972 may still “infect capital cases.” They encourage “requiring prosecutors to adhere to an established set of guidelines.” Finally, there has been growing support for taping interrogations of suspects in capital cases, so as to guard against the phenomenon of false confessions .

Related reading: For an international perspective on capital punishment, see Amnesty International’s 2013 report ; for more information on the evolution of U.S. public opinion on the death penalty, see historical trends from Gallup .

Keywords: crime, prisons, death penalty, capital punishment

About the Authors

Alexandra Raphel

John Wihbey

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Essays on Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is a controversial and thought-provoking topic that has been debated for decades. Writing an essay on capital punishment can be a challenging task, especially when it comes to choosing the right topic. In this article, we will discuss the importance of the topic, provide advice on choosing a topic, and present a detailed list of recommended essay topics, divided by category.

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a highly divisive issue that has sparked fierce debate around the world. It raises questions about morality, justice, and the role of the state in taking the life of a convicted criminal. Writing an essay on capital punishment allows students to explore these complex issues and develop critical thinking skills. Moreover, it provides an opportunity to examine the social, ethical, and legal implications of the death penalty, making it an important and relevant topic for academic study.

When choosing a topic for a capital punishment essay, it is important to consider your interests and the specific aspects of the death penalty that you find compelling. You may want to explore the history of capital punishment, its ethical implications, its effectiveness as a deterrent, or its impact on society. Additionally, consider the current debates and controversies surrounding the death penalty, as these can provide a rich source of material for your essay.

Recommended Capital Punishment Essay Topics

History of capital punishment.

• The origins of capital punishment
• The evolution of execution methods
• Famous historical cases of capital punishment
• The abolition of the death penalty in certain countries

Ethical and Moral Considerations

• The morality of the death penalty
• Religious perspectives on capital punishment
• The rights of the condemned
• The ethics of executing the innocent

Effectiveness and Deterrence

• The effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent
• Comparing crime rates in states with and without the death penalty
• The psychological impact of the death penalty on society
• Alternatives to capital punishment

Legal and Social Justice Issues

• Racial disparities in death penalty sentencing
• The role of capital punishment in the criminal justice system
• International perspectives on the death penalty
• The impact of capital punishment on victims' families

Contemporary Debates and Controversies

• The use of lethal injection as an execution method
• The debate over capital punishment for juveniles
• The role of the media in shaping public opinion on the death penalty
• The impact of public opinion on the future of the death penalty

These are just a few examples of the many possible essay topics related to capital punishment. Regardless of the specific topic you choose, it is important to approach the subject with an open mind and a willingness to engage with different perspectives. By considering the historical, ethical, legal, and social aspects of the death penalty, you can develop a well-rounded and insightful essay that contributes to the ongoing discourse on this important issue.

Why Capital Punishment Should Be Legalized

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The Role of Capital Punishment in Lessening Crime

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The Best Solution to The Views of Capital Punishment in Our Society

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Criminological Research and the Death Penalty: Has Research by Criminologists Impacted Capital Punishment Practices?

• Published: 16 April 2019
• Volume 44 , pages 536–580, ( 2019 )

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• Gordon P. Waldo 1 &
• Wesley Myers 1  

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At the request of the SCJA president this paper addresses five questions. Does criminological research make a difference relative to the death penalty? - If criminological research does make a difference, what is the nature of that difference? - What specific instances can one cite of research findings influencing death penalty policy decisions? Why hasn’t our research made more of a difference? What can we do, either in terms of directing our research or in terms of disseminating it, to facilitate it making a difference? Specific examples of research directly impacting policy are examined. The evidence presented suggests that research on capital punishment has had some impact on policy, but not nearly enough. There is still a high level of ignorance that has limited the impact of criminological research on death penalty policy. The proposed solution is to improve the education of the general public and decision makers in order to increase the impact of criminological research on capital punishment policy.

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One of the most interesting things the senior author learned in his first statistics class as an undergraduate, which became much clearer when he took his first graduate research methods class, was that if a correlation exists between two variables it does not automatically mean that one of the variables caused the other variable. This is true even if the one that appeared to be the cause (independent variable) met the first criteria for causation and occurred prior to the presumed effect (dependent variable). As he began to teach the first research methods course ever taught in the Criminology Program at Florida State University he also learned about extraneous variables, intervening variables, component variables, antecedent variables, suppressor variables, distorter variables, spurious non-correlations, conditional relationships, conjoint influence, etc. (Rosenberg, 1968 ). These different types of variables will not be discussed, but their existence has relevance in trying to answer the questions posed to the panelists. Instead, reference will be made to ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ influences in this paper because each can be important in bringing about change.

Two other methods the courts have used in this regard is the number of states that have made a significant change in their death penalty statutes, such as the number of states changing the age for execution of juveniles (Thompson v. Oklahoma, 1988 ) . Another method the United States Supreme Court has used is international opinions. “It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion …. The opinion of the world community, while not controlling our outcome, does provide respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions” (Roper v. Simmons, 2005 p.11).

Warden describes the first exoneration as follows. “The first of what would become a cavalcade of post-Furman Illinois death row exonerations occurred in 1987 when a young prosecutor, Michael Falconer, came forward with exculpatory evidence that exonerated two condemned Chicagoans, Perry Cobb and Darby Tillis. It is hard to imagine more fortuitous or improbable events than those that led to the exonerations of Cobb and Tillis, who had been sentenced to death for a double murder that occurred a decade earlier.’ In 1983, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed and remanded their case because the trial judge had rejected a defense request to give the jury an accomplice instruction. The prosecution’s star witness, Phyllis Santini, had driven the getaway car used in the crime - admittedly but, she claimed, unwittingly. Chicago Lawyer , an investigative publication … carried a detailed article based on the Illinois Supreme Court opinion and case file. As luck would have it, Falconer, who recently had graduated from law school, read the article, which discussed Santini’s testimony in some depth. Years earlier, Falconer had worked with Santini at a factory and, as he would testify, she had told him that her boyfriend had committed a murder and that she and the boyfriend were working with police and prosecutors to pin it on someone else. “I thought to myself, ‘Jeez, there’s a name from the past,”‘Falconer reflected in a Chicago Lawyer interview. “I read on and started thinking, ‘Holy shit, this is terrible.”‘He called a defense lawyer mentioned in the article, reporting what Santini had told him. At an ensuing bench trial in 1987, Cobb and Tillis were acquitted by a directed verdict on the strength of Falconer’s testimony.” By then, Falconer was a prosecutor in a neighboring jurisdiction.” Cobb and Tillis eventually received gubernatorial pardons based on innocence. As serendipitous as the Cobb and Tillis exonerations” were, they were no more so than many that would follow. … (there were) 20 Illinois death row exonerations -each involving odds-defying fortuity. The error rate among 305 convictions under the 1977 Illinois capital punishment statute was in excess of 6% (Warden, 2012 p. 247–248).

Justice Marshall was careful to fully support his position surrounding the lack of a deterrent effect of the death penalty with two lengthy ‘laundry lists’ of research in the footnotes of his published opinion which are abbreviated here. “See, e. g., Jon Peck, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Ehrlich and His Critics, 85 Yale L. J. 359 (1976); David Baldus & James Cole, A Comparison of the Work of Thorsten Sellin and Isaac Ehrlich on the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment, 85 Yale L. J. 170 (1975); William Bowers & Glenn Pierce, The Illusion of Deterrence in Isaac Ehrlich’s Research on Capital Punishment, 85 Yale L. J. 187 (1975); Issac Ehrlich. The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death, 65 Am. Econ. Rev. 397 (June 1975); Hook, The Death Sentence, in The Death Penalty in America 146 (Hugo Adam Bedau ed. 1967); Thurston Sellin, The Death Penalty, A Report for the Model Penal Code Project of the American Law Institute (1959).” And “See Passell & Taylor, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Another View (unpublished Columbia University Discussion Paper 74–7509, Mar. 1975), reproduced in Brief for Petitioner App. E in Jurek v. Texas, O. T. 1975, No. 75–5844; Passell, The Deterrent Effect of the Death Penalty: A Statistical Test, 28 Stan. L. Rev. 61 (1975); Baldus & Cole, A Comparison of the Work of Thorsten Sellin & Isaac Ehrlich on the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment, 85 Yale L. J. 170 (1975); Bowers & Pierce, The Illusion of Deterrence in Isaac Ehrlich’s Research on Capital Punishment, 85 Yale L. J. 187 (1975); Peck, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Ehrlich and His Critics, 85 Yale L. J. 359 (1976). See also Ehrlich, Deterrence: Evidence and Inference, 85 Yale L. J. 209 (1975); Ehrlich, Rejoinder, 85 Yale L. J. 368 (1976)… See also Bailey, Murder and Capital Punishment: Some Further Evidence, 45 Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 669 (1975); W. Bowers, Executions in America 121–163 (1974).”

This only happened once with a legislator who was in favor of the death penalty and opposed to abortion. I later learned from other lobbyist’s that he was known as a ‘weird duck’ and they tried to stay away from him. Fortunately, he is no longer in the legislature.

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Waldo, G.P., Myers, W. Criminological Research and the Death Penalty: Has Research by Criminologists Impacted Capital Punishment Practices?. Am J Crim Just 44 , 536–580 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-019-09478-4

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Death Penalty Research Paper

Introduction

The death penalty, also known as capital punishment is a legal process through which an individual is sentenced to death by the state justice as punishment for a crime committed (Dieter). Capital punishment has been practiced and accepted in some countries while in others it is a matter of debate. The debate on whether to legalize or abolish the death penalty raised both strong and weak disparities on the implications for justice in the United States.

Historical Overview

The criminal justice system has strongly supported the death penalty while the public opposes the ruling citing that criminal cases should not be punishable by death. Heinous crimes such as massacres are the main cases in which capital punishment is functional while lighter cases are punishable through jail terms. California is among the first counties to embrace capital punishment for cases like robbery, rapes, and serial killing. The first capital punishment law was established in the 18th B.C. during King’s Hammaurabi of Babylon reign. The king intended to punish 25 crimes by the death penalty. By the year 1700, the death penalty had been adopted by other countries, and 222 crimes were approved for the death penalty (Kirchner, n.d). The Americans later learned about the death penalty from Britain in the course of Europeans’ movements. After World War II, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the “right to life” article to enhance the relationship between communities.

The United Organizations’ formed framework was not valid because it did not consider all groups, particularly the juvenile and women cases. Though death penalties may be abolished, the peacekeeping methods through community groups can be held to replace them. Rehabilitation centers are also effective avenues for helping drug addicts and all kinds of criminals to change their morals. The cost of the death penalty is higher than imprisonment thereby, the death penalty should be abolished. Several articles and books discuss abolishing of the death penalty for crimes against humanity. The death penalty affects the remaining family members because they have to keep it in their minds that one of their own is going to be killed at a certain point. This can result in depression and at times cases of suicide as a result of the mental torture. When people lose their loved ones in murder or any other crime, the family of the victim may feel that the only way in which they can get justice for the victim is if the perpetrator gets the same fate as the victim, which is death. Some people argue that jail terms are better than death sentences because a jail term results in the perpetrator staying locked up for the rest of his life, and this may give them a chance to think of their actions. Death penalties can be applied to both males and females. There are situations, however, in which women are handed the death sentence. The law favors women when it comes to stiff sentences, but when a crime involves premeditation and murder in a horrendous manner, the women can be handed the death sentence. Karla Faye was the first ever woman executed in the USA since 1984, after committing a murder in Texas. Although she later claimed to have changed to Christianity and changed her ways, she was still handed the sentence because of the nature of the crime, in which because of her use of drugs, she killed an innocent person. A number of people advocated for her sentence to be converted to life imprisonment, but this was not allowed (Clark Prosecutor).

The 8th Amendment

Capital punishment should be abolished because it goes against the 8th amendment of unusual punishment for cruel criminals. The amendment states that capital cases are formulated in an objective and fixed standard to see off discrimination in judicial courts. Therefore, when capital punishments’ choice is made, the judge should consider if a lighter judgment such as a jail term can correct the offense. This is because there has been a lot of prejudice in the law courts depending on the familiarity and the profile the criminal. Some judges are lenient in dealing with cases of people from high ranking offices in the government while making an unfair judgment to the unpopular criminals in the justice corridors. Often, the people with a louder voice have their way to justice than the poor. Regularly, we hear most cases whose evidence is highly questionable but the culprit released. Most victims of criminal activities do not find justice and will prefer keeping silent. The death penalty should be abolished because it is discriminative in the racial minorities’ lines and the poor.

Statistical Data as One More Reason

Statistics show that most people that have faced capital punishment are from poor families. Some judges are corrupt and ask for money to deal with similar cases in a selective manner that could imply a lighter judgment. A poor man will keep moving from one corridor of justice to the other without help, or if any, it takes a long and tedious process. If such a poor man’s criminal punishment required the death penalty, the process becomes faster on his side than in a rich man’s case. In American society, racism has contributed to higher capital punishment for Native Americans. Immigrants, especially the blacks are bound to face more judgment on bigger criminal activities in the court justice. Everyone fears death. When it is publicly declared that certain acts will need death penalties, the people are able to guard themselves against falling into the sting of death. There is hope in jailing a rapist or murderer for 10 years than a person convicted of the death penalty. The prisoner might change his behavior while still in cells and later become a learning icon. For example, in an article by Scott Shane in the New York Times “A death penalty Fight comes home” published on 5th February 2013, he reports on Kirk Noble Bloodsworth’s story, an innocent man charged as a criminal. For 20 years innocent Bloodsworth lived his life in jail bars until DNA results proved him false. Today, he campaigns against the death penalty. Shane reports of Bloodsworth’s ordeal in the hands of law enforcers and judges…

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State Studies

The following list is a sample of recent state studies focusing on issues of the death penalty.

• The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override (2011) — Study by the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama exposing the practice of state judges imposing death sentences by overriding a jury’s recommendation for life.
• Alabama Death Penalty Assessment (2006) — Study by the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project found that Alabama’s death penalty failed to meet fundamental ABA standards of fairness and accuracy.
• Broken Justice: The Death Penalty in Alabama (2005) — Study by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), showing how structural and procedural flaws in Alabama’s criminal justice system stack the deck against fair trials and appropriate sentencing for those facing the death penalty.
• Racial Sentencing Patterns in Arkansas (2008) — A study by University of Iowa law professor David Baldus of the death penalty in Arkansas showing racial patterns in sentencing.
• Arizona Death Penalty Assessment (2006) — Study by the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project determining that Arizona’s capital punishment laws are plagued with serious problems.
• California Cost Study 2011 — DPIC summary of “A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle” from Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review by Judge Arthur L. Alarcon & Paula M. Mitchell.
• California’s Death Penalty is Dead (2011) — Study by the ACLU of Northern California catalogs numerous intractable problems and waning public support which may lead to the end of capital punishment in the state.
• Death in Decline ‘09 (2009) — A study by the ACLU of Northern California revealing that only three counties (Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside) accounted for 83% of the state’s death sentences in 2009.
• The Hidden Death Tax (2009) — A study by the ACLU of Northern California on the costs of the death penalty found additional expenses due to a net increase in the size of death row.
• Death by Geography (2008) — A study by the ACLU of Northern California examining the variation among California counties in seeking the death penalty.
• The Impact of Legally Inappropriate Factors on Death Sentencing for California Homicides, 1990-1999 (2005) — A study by G. Pierce & M. Radelet published in the Santa Clara Law Review finding that the race of the victim in the underlying murder greatly affected whether a defendant would be sentenced to death.
• Colorado Capital Punishment: An Empirical Study (2013) — Conducted by law professors Justin Marceau and Sam Kamin of the University of Denver and Wanda Foglia of Rowan University found that the death penalty in Colorado is applied so rarely as to render the system unconstitutional. The authors concluded that Colorado’s death penalty law is applicable to almost all first-degree murders, but is imposed so infrequently that it fails to provide the kind of careful narrowing of cases required by the Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia (1972). In this groundbreaking study, the researchers reviewed all first-degree murder cases in the state between 1999 and 2010. They found that 92 percent of the 544 first-degree murder cases in that time span contained at least one aggravating factor that made the defendant eligible for the death penalty. However, prosecutors filed notices of intent to seek the death penalty in only 15 murder cases and pursued the death penalty at trial in only five of those cases — a 1% rate among death-eligible cases. The authors wrote, “Under the Colorado capital sentencing system, many defendants are eligible but almost none are actually sentenced to death. Because Colorado’s aggravating factors so rarely result in actual death sentences, their use in any given case is a violation of the Eighth Amendment.”

Connecticut

• Arbitrariness in Death Cases (2011) — Study by Professor John Donohue of Yale University’s School of Law of death sentences in Connecticut finding that seeking the death penalty often correlated with the race of the victim and the defendant, and not necessarily with the severity of the crimes.
• The Delaware Death Penalty: An Empirical Study (2012) — A five-year study of the operation of Delaware’s death penalty by Cornell law school.
• The Death Penalty in Florida (2009) — An evaluation of Florida’s death penalty by Christopher Slobogin, Professor of Law and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University.
• Florida Death Penalty Assessment (2006) — Study by the American Bar Association of Florida’s death penalty system.
• A Matter of Life and Death (2007) — Study by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution of Georgia’s use of the death penalty finding that “getting the death penalty in Georgia is as predictable as a lightning strike.”
• Georgia Eyewitness Identification Procedures (2007) — Study by the Georgia Innocence Project revealing that 83% of Georgia police agencies have no written rules on handling eyewitness identifications.
• Georgia Death Penalty Assessment Report (2006) — Study by the American Bar Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project found that Georgia’s death penalty fails to meet 43 ABA standards for improving the fairness and accuracy of the death penalty.
• Thirty Years Analysis of Death Penalty Cases in Georgia (2005) — Study by the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council analyzing death penalty cases in the state from 1973 - 2003.
• Illinois Capital Reform Study Committee Final Report (2010) — Sixth and final report of the committee created by the state legislature in 2003 and headed by Thomas P. Sullivan, a former U.S. Attorney.
• Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment (2005) — Study by the Commission, aiming to address problems Illinois Governor George Ryan identified two years prior, including potential safeguards to prevent the possible conviction and execution of innocent inmates.
• Indiana Death Penalty Cost Study (2010) — A state analysis of the costs of the death penalty in Indiana finding the average cost to a county for a trial and direct appeal in a capital case to be over ten times more than a life-without-parole case.
• Indiana Death Penalty Assessment (2007) — Study by the American Bar Association calling for a halt to executions in the state because of concerns about the arbitrariness of the state’s death penalty.
• Kansas Judicial Council Death Penalty Advisory Committee Report (2014) — Study by the committee examining the state’s application of capital punishment and the hefty price tag of seeking the death penalty.
• Kansas Cost Study (2003) — Study by the Kansas government detailing the disparity in cost between death penalty cases and non-death penalty cases in Kansas.
• Kentucky Assessment on the Death Penalty (2011) — ABA study analyzing various laws, rules, procedures, standards, and guidelines relating to the administration of capital punishment in Kentucky.
• Diminishing All of Us: The Death Penalty in Louisiana (2012) — A recent study published by the Jesuit Social Research Institute of Loyola University pointed to numerous problems with Louisiana’s death penalty.
• Death Sentencing in East Baton Rouge Parish, 1990-2008 (2011) — A study conducted by Professors Glenn Pierce and Michael Radelet published in the Lousiana Law Review showing that the odds of a death sentence in parts of Louisiana were 2.6 times higher for those charged with killing a white victim than for those charged with killing a black victim.
• Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment Report (2008) — Study by the legislative commission established to examine the death penalty in Maryland recommending abolition of the punishment.
• Maryland Cost Study (2008) — Study by the Urban Institute detailing the disparity in cost between death penalty cases and non-death penalty cases in Maryland.
• Missouri Death Penalty Assessment (2012) — Study by the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project determining that Missouri’s capital punishment laws are plagued with serious problems.
• Missouri Death Penalty and Geography (2008) — Study by Prof. David Sloss of the St. Louis University School of Law showing that the chance of a death sentence appears to rest on what part of the state the crime was committed in.
• Life and Death Decisions: Prosecutorial Discretion and Capital Punishment in Missouri (2008) — A study by Katherine Barnes of Arizona University Law School, and David Sloss and Stephen Thaman of St. Louis Univeristy Law School, studying 1046 cases of intentional homicide in Missouri to determine geographical and racial effects in the rates at which prosecutors seek the death penalty.
• Nevada Cost Study 2012 — A study by Dr. Terance Miethe of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada on the costs of the death penalty in Nevada.

New Hampshire

• Majority Report of the Commission to Study the Death Penalty in New Hampshire (2010) — A study by a New Hampshire commission evaluating the use of the death penalty within the state.
• The Application of the Death Penalty in New Mexico, July 1979 through December 2007: An Empirical Analysis (2008) — A study by attorney Marcia Wilson revealing information on how the death penalty was applied in New Mexico after its reinstatement.

North Carolina

• Race Discrimination in Jury Selection and Non-Enforcement of Batson in North Carolina (2016) — A study by appellate lawyers Daniel R. Pollitt and Brittany P. Warren found that, despite pervasive evidence that North Carolina prosecutors disproportionately employed peremptory strikes to exclude black jurors, the state’s courts have persistently refused to enforce the constitutional prohibition against race-based jury strikes. In 114 cases in which Batson issues were decided on the merits, North Carolina appeals courts never found any substantive Batson violation where a prosecutor had articulated a reason for the peremptory challenge of a minority juror. In the 74 cases in which it had decided Batson claims on the merits, the Supreme Court of North Carolina had never once found a substantive Batson violation.
• The Death Penalty in North Carolina: A Summary of the Data and Scientific Studies (2011) — A comprehensive review of studies on the death penalty by Matthew Robinson, Professor of Government and Justice Studies at Appalachian State University.
• Excessive Sentencing in North Carolina (2010) — A study by Professor Frank Baumgartner showed that most of those originally condemned to death in North Carolina eventually received lesser sentences when their cases were concluded.
• Racial Bias Study (2010) — A study by Professors Michael Radelet and Glenn Pierce found that the odds of a defendant receiving a death sentence in North Carolina were three times higher if the person was convicted of killing a white person than if he had killed a black person.
• Potential Savings from Abolition of the Death Penalty in North Carolina (2009) — A study published by a Duke University economist revealing that North Carolina could save $11 million annually if it dropped the death penalty.
• The High Cost of the Death Penalty (2009) — A study by the Independent Weekly showing that North Carolina conservatively spent at least $36 million dollars by seeking the death penalty instead of life in prison without parole over a seven year span.
• Mental Illness and the Death Penalty in North Carolina: A Diagnostic Approach (2007) — Study by the Charlotte School of Law revealing that obstacles entrenched within the criminal justice system impede efforts to identify those with severe mental illness and treat them fairly.
• Death Row Injustices (2006) — Study by the Common Sense Foundation of North Carolina finding that at least 37 people on death row had trial lawyers who would not have met minimum standards of qualification at the time of the study.
• Race and the Death Penalty in North Carolina An Empirical Analysis: 1993-1997 (2001) — A study by Professor Jack Boger and presented by The Common Sense Foundation North Carolina Council of Churches.
• Require higher standards for proving guilt if a death sentence is sought (such as DNA evidence)
• Bar the death penalty for those who suffer from “serious mental illness”
• Lessen the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty
• Create a Death Penalty Charging Committee at the Attorney General’s Office to approve capital prosecutions
• Adopt a Racial Justice Act to facilitate inequality claims in Ohio courts.
• Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Report (2007) — Study by the American Bar Association stating that Ohio’s capital punishment system is so flawed that it should be suspended while the state conducts a thorough review of its fairness and accuracy.
• AP Ohio Study (2005) — Study by the Associated Press of 1,936 indictments reported to the Ohio Supreme Court by Ohio counties with capital cases from October 1981 through 2002 finding that capital punishment has been applied in an uneven and often arbitrary fashion.
• Fair Punishment Project (2016) — Analysis of case records, media reports, and opinions of Oregon legal experts by Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project ofinding that two-thirds of the 35 people on Oregon’s death row have serious mental illness or intellectual impairment, experienced severe childhood trauma, or were under age 21 at the time of the offense.
• Oregon’s Death Penalty: A Cost Analysis (2016) — Study by Lewis & Clark Law School Prof. Aliza B. Kaplan, Seattle University criminal justice Prof. Peter Collins, and Lewis & Clark law candidate Venetia L. Mayhew examined the costs of hundreds of aggravated murder and murder cases in Oregon finding that the average trial and incarceration costs of an Oregon murder case that results in a death penalty are almost double those of a murder case that results in a sentence of life imprisonment or a term of years, and that, excluding state prison costs, cases that result in death sentences may be three to four times more expensive.

Pennsylvania

• In Life and Death, Costly Mistakes (2011) — Study by the Philadelphia Inquirer of death penalty appeals in Pennsylvania spanning three decades, finding a pattern of ineffective assistance by defense attorneys.
• Report of the Advisory Committee on Wrongful Convictions (2011) — A study by the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee on Wrongful Convictions identifying the most common causes of wrongful convictions and any current laws and procedures implicated in each type of causation.
• Facts about Pennsylvania’s Death Penalty (2009) — Study by the Associated Press showing the state goes through the expensive and time-consuming process of trying many death penalty cases and fighting appeals, but almost all cases end with a life sentence.
• Pennsylvania Death Penalty Assessment Report (2007) — Study by the American Bar Association (ABA) showing that flaws in Pennsylvania’s death penalty system are so pervasive that the state risks executing an innocent person.
• Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System (1999) — Study by the Committee, making a series of 23 recommendations to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, to the Legislature, to the state’s Attorney General and District Attorneys, and to Governor Ed Rendell.

South Carolina

• Removal of African Americans and Women in Jury Selection in South Carolina Capital Cases, 1977-2012 (2016) — Study by Professor Ann M. Eisenberg of the University of South Carolina of jury selection in 35 South Carolina homicide cases between 1997 and 2012 that resulted in death sentences, reviewing the strikes or acceptance of more than 3,000 venire members for gender and more than 1,000 veniremenbers for race. The study found that prosecutors exercised their peremptory strikes at nearly triple the rate against African-American prospective jurors than against white prospective jurors and that the death-qualification process further impeded a substantial number of African-American jurors from serving, contributing to an overrepresentation of whites on death penalty juries. The gender study showed that, while men and women were excused for cause at comparable rates, both were struck more for views against the death the death penalty than for pro-death penalty views and women were 3.8 times more likely to be excluded for opposing the death penalty than for pro-death penalty views. Women were 1.4 times more likely to be struck for cause for opposing the death penalty than men and men were 2.3 times more likely to be struck than women for being unable to consider a life sentence. Prosecutors were 1.4 times more likely to peremptorily strike a woman than a man, and defense lawyers were 1.4 times more likely to peremptorily strike a man than a woman.
• The Effect of Race, Gender, and Location on Prosecutorial Decision to Seek the Death Penalty in South Carolina (2006) — Study of homicide cases in South Carolina by Professor Isaac Unah of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and attorney Michael Songer finding that prosecutors were more likely to seek the death penalty when the victim in the underlying murder was white, if the victim was female, and when the crime occurred in a rural area of the state.
• Tennessee’s Death Penalty Lottery (2018) — An examination of every first-degree murder case in Tennessee from 1977-2017 found that the facts of the crime did not predict whether a death sentence would be imposed. Rather, the best indicators were arbitrary factors such as where the murder occurred, the race of the defendant, the quality of the defense, and the views of the prosecutors and judges assigned to the case.
• Tennessee Legislative Study Committee Recommendations (2009) — A 16-month analysis of the state’s capital punishment process by the committee with recommendations for achieving a more fair and accurate system
• Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment (2007) — Study by the ABA detailing racial and geographic disparities in capital cases, poorly trained defense attorneys, heavy caseloads for those representing defedants, and inadequate procedures to address innocence claims.
• Texas Death Penalty Assessment Report (2013) — Study by the ABA focusing on the fairness and accuracy of the death penalty system in Texas.
• Regulating Death in the Lone Star State (2011) — A study by the ACLU of Texas and Northwestern University’s Center for International Human Rights revealing that procedures for euthanizing animals in the state are more carefully regulated than the protocol for executing death row inmates.
• What’s Messing with Texas Death Sentences? (2011) — A study analyzing the decline of death sentencing in Texas by David McCord.
• Convicting the Innocent: Texas Justice Derailed (2009) — A study by The Justice Project analyzing the cases of 39 innocent Texans who collectively spent more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
• Too Much Cruelty, Too Little Clemency (2009) — A study by Amnesty International examining many of the nearly 200 executions that have occurred during Governor Rick Perry’s term in office.
• Legal Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment (2009) — A study that reveals disparities in who receives the death penalty in Texas by Scott Phillips, a professor at the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver.
• Status Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment (2009) — A study by Scott Phillips, a sociology and criminology professor at the University of Denver, published in the Law & Society Review focusing on the imposition of death sentences in relation to the victim’s social status.
• Racial Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment (2008) — A study by Prof. Scott Phillips of the University of Denver exploring the relationship of race to death sentencing in Harris County (Houston), Texas.
• A New Look at Race When Death Is Sought (2008) — A study by Professor Scott Phillips of the University of Denver found that black defendants in Houston, Texas, are more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants, even when other variables are accounted for.
• Eyewitness Identification Procedure in Texas (2008) — A study by the Justice Project concerning criminal justice procedures in Texas.
• Mental Illness and Executions in Texas (2007) — Study conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has revealing that Texas is almost last among states in spending on mental health services and performs poorly in other mental health areas, while executing many inmates with serious mental illness.
• Minimizing Risk, A Blueprint for Death Penalty Reform in Texas (2005) — Study by the Texas Defender Service calling for substantial changes in the way Texas handles capital murder cases.
• A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty (2000) — A study by the Texas Defender Service.
• Virginia Death Penalty Assessment Report (2013) — Study by the ABA focusing on the fairness and accuracy of Virginia’s death penalty system.
• A Vision for Justice (2005) — Study by the Innocence Commission for Virginia of 11 wrongful conviction cases in Virginia finding that mistaken eyewitness identification is the major reason innocent people have been convicted in the state.
• Virginia Crime Lab Audit (2005) — Study by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors finding that the Virginia lab’s internal review process was flawed and that labs had botched DNA tests.
• Washington State Bar Report (2006) — Study by the Death Penalty Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Defense of the Washington State Bar on the state’s death penalty.

Jul 24, 2024

New Study Finds Evidence of Racial Bias in California Death Sentences As Resentencings Begin in Cases Tainted by Discriminatory Jury Selection

As Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price seeks to rem­e­dy her office’s his­to­ry of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry jury selec­tion, an study pub­lished in the 2024 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies by Catherine M. Grosso, Jeffrey Fagan, and Michael Laurence finds empir­i­cal evi­dence that the race of the defen­dant and the race of the vic­tim affect the like­li­hood of a death sen­tence being imposed in…

Feb 16, 2024

Black History Month Profile Series: Jennifer Eberhardt

This month, DPIC cel­e­brates Black History Month with week­ly pro­files of notable Black Americans whose work affect­ed the mod­ern death penal­ty era. The sec­ond in the series is Professor Jennifer…

Feb 28, 2023

NEW RESOURCES : Interactive Display Illustrates Conditions on Death Row

A joint research project begun by two Texas uni­ver­si­ties illus­trates the con­fine­ment con­di­tions of death-row pris­on­ers, includ­ing areas such as vis­i­ta­tion, health care, attor­ney vis­its, recre­ation, food, and oppor­tu­ni­ties for work. The Capital Punishment &  Social Rights Research Initiative has cre­at­ed an ini­tial info­graph­ic describ­ing the con­di­tions in…

Sep 30, 2022

Report: Black People 7 . 5 Times More Likely to Be Wrongfully Convicted of Murder than Whites, Risk Even Greater if Victim was White

Black peo­ple are about 7 ½ times more like­ly to be wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der in the U.S. than are whites, and about 80 % more like­ly to be inno­cent than oth­ers con­vict­ed of mur­der, accord­ing to a new report by the National Registry of Exonerations . The already dis­pro­por­tion­ate risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tion, the Registry found, was even worse if the mur­der vic­tim in a case was…

Sep 23, 2022

North Carolina ACLU Challenges Death Qualification of Jurors as Racially and Sexually Discriminatory

Lawyers for a  North Carolina cap­i­tal defen­dant have filed a sweep­ing chal­lenge to the method by which death-penal­ty jurors are empan­eled, argu­ing that the com­bi­na­tion of a process known as ​ “ death qual­i­fi­ca­tion” and dis­cre­tionary jury strikes pro­duces a jury so racial­ly and sex­u­al­ly unrep­re­sen­ta­tive that it vio­lates a defendant’s right to a fair…

Sep 12, 2022

As the Lone Star State Conducts 400 th White-Victim Execution, Study Shows Black Lives Matter Less in Texas Capital Cases

A new study of the Texas death penal­ty, released as the state was con­duct­ing its 400 th mod­ern-era exe­cu­tion in a case involv­ing a white vic­tim, has doc­u­ment­ed over­whelm­ing racial dis­par­i­ties in the Lone Star state’s cap­i­tal punishment…

Aug 29, 2022

Report: Racial Disparities in Death Sentences Imposed on Late Adolescent Offenders Have Grown Since Supreme Court Ruling Banning Juvenile Death Penalty

Racial dis­par­i­ties in U.S. death sen­tences imposed on late ado­les­cent offend­ers have grown sub­stan­tial­ly since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment against juve­nile offend­ers in 2005 , accord­ing to a new report by University of North Carolina polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Frank R. Baumgartner …

Jul 20, 2022

New DPIC Podcast: The Death Penalty Census

Data from fifty years of the mod­ern U.S. death penal­ty reveal ​ “ a sys­tem that is rife with error, filled with dis­crim­i­na­tion, [and] very, very dif­fi­cult to fair­ly admin­is­ter,” Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham says in the July episode the Discussions with DPIC pod­cast. The episode, a dis­cus­sion between Dunham and 2021  –  2022 DPIC Data Fellow Aimee Breaux about the launch of DPIC ’s ground­break­ing Death Penalty Census data­base, was released July  20 ,…

Apr 04, 2022

New DPIC Podcast: Prof. Meredith Rountree on What Influences Death Penalty Jurors’ Moral Decision Making

In the March 2022 episode of Discussions With DPIC , Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Senior Lecturer Meredith Rountree speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about her study of the types of evi­dence that influ­ence juror deci­sion-mak­ing at the sen­tenc­ing stage of capital…

Jan 13, 2022

New Study: Kentucky Death Penalty Racially Biased, Arbitrary, Error Prone

Kentucky ​ ’ s death penal­ty is racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, geo­graph­i­cal­ly arbi­trary, and rid­dled with sys­temic flaws, a new study of the commonwealth’s use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has…

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Capital Punishment Research Paper

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Throughout the world, from earliest recorded times, the death penalty has played a prominent role in social control. Abolition of the death penalty became a matter for political discussion in Europe and America beginning in 1764, when the young Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794) published his little book, On Crimes and Punishments . Beccaria’s criticism of torture and the death penalty typified the Enlightenment zeal for rational reform of prevailing social practices. Beccaria’s alternative to the death penalty was life in prison at hard labor. In short order Catherine of Russia decreed an end to the death penalty, and so did Emperor Leopold in the province of Tuscany in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Maximilien Robespierre, a powerful leader in the French Revolution, attacked the death penalty as murder. In England, by the end of the eighteenth century, Parliament was being petitioned to reduce the number of capital felonies, which numbered in the hundreds; complete abolition was never a serious prospect.

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Get 10% off with 24start discount code, capital punishment in america, 1793–1982.

During the seventeenth century, the criminal justice systems in the American colonies took their main features from the mother country. A mandatory hanging carried out in public after conviction in a jury trial was the widely used punishment for murder and other traditional felonies (arson, rape, robbery, burglary). In the new nation, the first significant step toward reform of the death penalty was taken in Pennsylvania in 1793, when the legislature created ‘‘degrees’’ of murder and confined the death penalty to offenders convicted of murder in the ‘‘first-degree’’—willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder and felony murder (any homicide committed in the course of arson, rape, robbery, and burglary). By the middle of the nineteenth century many states had adopted this reform as a more precise conception of what ought to count as criminal homicide deserving the death penalty.

During the nineteenth century, state legislatures from Maine to Pennsylvania regularly received petitions from religious groups, notably the Society of Friends (Quakers), in favor of complete abolition. During this period two important further reforms were initiated. One ended public executions, thus confining the hangman and his necessary but sordid duties to the relative privacy of the prison yard. (Debauchery among the onlookers at public executions was widely regarded in this country and in England as a disgrace that needlessly fueled demands for abolition.) The other reform abandoned the mandatory death sentence upon a conviction of a capital felony in favor of giving the trial jury the power to choose between a death sentence and ‘‘mercy,’’ in the form of a long prison term. A third trend— statutory abolition of all death penalties— advanced, stumbled, and by the Civil War vanished. Nevertheless, between 1847 (when Michigan abolished the death penalty for murder, though not for treason) and 1887 (when Maine abolished the death penalty), several states experimented with complete abolition.

With the advent of the Progressive Era, nine states across the nation, from Tennessee to Washington, repealed all their capital statutes; all but two (Minnesota and North Dakota) restored it within a few years, as public reaction to the experiment in most states brought it to an end. Execution by lethal gas chamber was first used in Nevada in 1923 and within a few years was adopted in many other states as a method superior in its humanity both to hanging and to electrocution.

During the Depression and World War II, agitation for abolition in the state legislatures came to a virtual halt. In 1958 the first prominent interest in evaluating and abolishing the death penalty occurred in Delaware, when the legislature (under the influence of local political leadership and the pathbreaking Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment in England in 1953) repealed all that state’s death penalty statutes. Influenced by the example of Delaware, several other states in the 1960s debated whether to abolish the death penalty; abolition efforts were successful in Vermont, West Virginia, and Iowa. No doubt the highpoint of the mid-century abolition movement occurred in 1964 in Oregon, when in a popular referendum the public voted to repeal the state constitutional provision for the death penalty.

Beginning in 1967, a new strategy to abolish the death penalty nationwide began to unfold, directed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) in New York. Mindful of the way in which African American defendants were especially vulnerable to the death penalty, and the way the administration of the death penalty was both highly discriminatory and in general arbitrarily imposed, the LDF decided to attack it nationwide, not in the legislatures but in the federal courts, and on federal constitutional grounds. LDF attorneys argued that the evidence showed the death penalty in the United States violated ‘‘equal protection of the laws’’ and ‘‘due process of law,’’ and that it was a ‘‘cruel and unusual punishment’’—not in this or that case, not just in the South as part of the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, but uniformly and generally across the nation. This strategy, inspired by the Civil Rights movement of the early 1960s, led to a moratorium on executions (though not on death sentences) as the Supreme Court debated the constitutional status of the death penalty.

In 1972, the Court held that the death penalty was unconstitutional as administered, because of its arbitrary and discriminatory application ( Furman v. Georgia ). Many state legislatures promptly revised and reenacted their death penalty statutes, hoping they would pass constitutional muster. Four years later the Court held that several varieties of these new capital statutes had indeed cured the problems of the prior statutes and that, in any case, the death penalty as such was not unconstitutional; more precisely, the death penalty did not violate the constitutional prohibition against ‘‘cruel and unusual punishment’’ ( Gregg v. Georgia ). In 1977, after the moratorium had lasted nearly a decade, executions resumed, first in Utah and then across the nation. During this period a new method of execution found increasing favor across the land: death by lethal injection. First adopted, in Oklahoma, in 1977, lethal injection was first used in Texas in 1982.

Current Status of Capital Punishment

As of 1998, Amnesty International reported that some sixty nations worldwide (including all western European countries) counted as ‘‘abolitionist for all crimes.’’ Another fifteen countries were listed as ‘‘abolitionist for ordinary crimes only,’’ that is, these countries retained the death penalty only for ‘‘exceptional crimes’’ such as those provided by military law. Another twenty-eight countries were listed as ‘‘abolitionist de facto,’’ because although their statutes still authorized the death penalty in certain cases, no executions had been carried out for at least a decade. Finally, ninety-four countries—mostly in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia—were listed as retaining and using the death penalty for murder and other felonies. Interpreters of the international scene have insisted that there is a slow but steady rejection of the death penalty worldwide, a trend that isolates the United States and conspicuously prevents it from exercising international leadership in protecting human rights, as these rights are increasingly defined under international human rights law.

By 1998, in the United States, thirteen states (and the District of Columbia) had abolished the death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Since 1977 each of thirty states has carried out at least one execution.

Among the death penalty states (and the federal government), thirty-two use lethal injection to carry out the death penalty, eleven use the electric chair, seven use the gas chamber, four use hanging, and three use firing squad. Fourteen of these jurisdictions give the prisoner a choice between death by lethal injection and one of the other four methods.

Early in 1999 the LDF reported a total of 3,565 persons under death sentence in thirty-seven states (twenty-nine of these prisoners were awaiting execution under federal law, including eight under military law). By race, whites constituted 56 percent of the total, African Americans 35 percent; other nonwhites (American Indians, Asians, Hispanics) totaled 9 percent. The vast majority (99 percent) were male. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that as of the end of 1998, 65 percent of the nation’s death row population were recidivist felons with a prior criminal record, including 9 percent who had a conviction of some form of criminal homicide. During the 1990s, the nation’s death row population grew on the average at a rate of about 250 prisoners per year. The average length of time spent under death sentence prior to execution was about ten years. Of the 6,424 persons sentenced to death between 1973 and 1998, more than a third (38 percent) were not executed; some died awaiting execution, others committed suicide, and still others were commuted or resentenced by court order.

Executions in the 1990s went from a low of fourteen in 1991 to a high of seventy-four in 1997, for an annual average of about forty. The nation’s high-point in executions during the twentieth century was reached in 1935, however, when 199 offenders were executed. During the 1930s the percentage of convicted murderers executed was far higher than in the 1990s.

Capital Crimes

Historically, a wide variety of crimes have been punishable by death. As recently as 1965 in the United States one or more jurisdictions authorized the death penalty not only for murder, but also for kidnapping, treason, rape, carnal knowledge, armed robbery, perjury in a capital case, assault by a life-term prisoner, burglary, arson, train wrecking, sabotage, and desecration of a grave, to mention only a dozen. Executions for these crimes, except for rape, were rare. Supreme Court decisions in the 1970s, however, rejected mandatory death penalties (even for murder by a prisoner serving a life term for murder), and the death penalty for such nonhomicidal crimes as rape and kidnapping. In subsequent years, Congress has enacted statutes punishing several nonhomicidal crimes with death (notably, the crime of trafficking in large quantities of drugs). Whether the Supreme Court will sustain or reject the death penalty for such crimes remains to be seen.

In other countries murder is by no means the only capital crime. In Egypt and Algeria, terrorists are subject to the death penalty. Rebellion and obdurate apostasy are subject to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Threats of a coup d’etat in Sierra Leone led to summary executions in 1992. Certain drug offenses in Malaysia and Indonesia carry a death penalty. In 1992, China added more than two dozen new capital crimes to its penal code. Although virtually all of western European nations have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, it retains popular and governmental support in much of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Public Opinion on Capital Punishment

American public opinion appears to support the death penalty for murder and has done so throughout the twentieth century, except for a brief period in the mid-1960s. In the 1990s, nearly 80 percent of the public approved of capital punishment; about 5 percent were undecided and the rest opposed it. However, more careful investigations of public attitudes have shown that given the option of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP), the public support for the death penalty drops by a significant amount, in some cases by half (from 80 percent to 40 percent). This research supports the view that while the public generally accepts the death penalty for murderers, it prefers their long-term imprisonment. And capital trial juries, all of them vetted to exclude anyone strongly opposed to the death penalty, coupled with plea bargaining practices, produce death sentences in only about 10 percent of the murder cases where it might be issued. Understandably, opponents of the death penalty view public support of executions as ‘‘a mile wide but only an inch deep.’’

No doubt public support for the death penalty is a powerful political factor in explaining the decline of executive clemency in capital cases and the willingness of most legislatures, state and federal, to expand the list of capital crimes. (Executive clemency in capital cases dropped from an annual average of twenty-two in the 1960s to two in the 1990s.) In Europe, however, despite popular majorities in many countries that have supported the death penalty for decades, parliaments have not only abolished it, they have gone further and made abolition a condition of entry into the Council of Europe.

Administration

In 1997 the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association called for a nationwide moratorium on executions, pending fundamental improvements in its administration. Salient problems affecting the fairness of the death penalty included failure to provide adequate trial counsel for the defendant, inadequate resources for counsel to investigate the crime and locate witnesses, and inadequate resources to verify alibi testimony and retain expert witnesses. Several other investigative bodies in the 1990s, notably the International Commission of Jurists (1996) and the UN Commission on Human Rights (1999), went further and called for the United States to abolish the death penalty entirely, on the ground that the record to date showed that these administrative problems were beyond remedy.

During the 1990s the Capital Jury Project, funded by the National Science Foundation, studied the behavior of jurors and juries in capital cases. Over a thousand juror interviews were conducted in more than a dozen death penalty states. Research found that trial jurors do not adequately understand the judge’s instructions designed to guide them in deciding whether to sentence the defendant to death, and that even where they do understand these instructions, they often ignore them.

By far the most prominent worry has been prompted by perceived racial disparities in death sentences and executions. For decades, the men and women on American death rows have been disproportionately nonwhite when measured against their proportion of the total population. (The numbers have not been so disproportionate when measured against the racial distribution of all persons in prison.) In the early 1970s, research on the death penalty for rape showed a powerful race-of-victim effect: virtually no one was sentenced to death for the rape of a nonwhite woman, and a black man accused of raping a white woman was ten times as likely to be convicted, sentenced to death, and executed as a white man charged with the same crime.

In the early 1980s a massive research project was launched in order to determine whether much the same pattern could be found in the death penalty for murder. The results of this research, conducted by David Baldus and his associates for the appellant’s argument in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) and later published in their book as Equal Justice and the Death Penalty (1990), showed that ‘‘defendants charged with killing white victims were 4.3 times as likely to receive a death sentence as defendants charged with killing blacks’’ (p. 401). Nevertheless, the Supreme Court, by a vote of 5 to 4, refused to order revision or nullification of any death penalty statutes or procedures, arguing that this research failed to ‘‘prove that the decisionmakers in [McCleskey’s] case acted with discriminatory purpose.’’ Efforts in subsequent years to persuade Congress to enact a Racial Justice Act (designed to permit a challenge to any death sentence believed to be based on racial grounds and to require the government to rebut the challenge, if possible, with appropriate evidence to the contrary) were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, a 1990 report on racial disparities in death sentencing conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office confirmed the ‘‘race of victim influence . . . at all stages of the criminal justice system process’’ (p. 5).

Miscarriages of Justice

Of all the worries associated with the death penalty, probably none is more potent than the horrifying thought that an innocent person might be executed. Western civilization itself could be said to rest on two cases of execution of the innocent: the death of Socrates in Athens in 399 B.C. and the death of Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem in A.D. 33. Death for witches is the most extreme case, for if witchcraft is impossible (even though belief in its efficacy remains widespread to this day in various parts of the world), then everyone burned at the stake or hanged for this crime was innocent.

There is no doubt, however, that scores of innocent defendants have been arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death—only to be saved (often literally at the last minute) because new evidence was discovered that persuaded an appellate court to overturn the sentence or convinced a governor to extend clemency. Virtually every American death penalty jurisdiction has at least one sobering story of this sort to tell. And there are scattered cases from the nineteenth century in which the state government, in the twentieth century, admitted to carrying out a wrongful execution. The Haymarket anarchists in Chicago a century ago was one such case; Governor John Peter Altgelt spared the lives of the three surviving defendants in 1893. The most recent, widely publicized, and flagrant example of this problem appeared in Illinois late in 1998: Between 1977 and 1988 in Illinois, almost as many death row inmates were released on grounds of their innocence (ten) as were executed (eleven).

Arguments for and Against Capital Punishment

Arguments in defense and criticism of the death penalty can take any of several forms: secular versus religious, and empirical versus a priori.

Religious Arguments

Jews, Christians, and Muslims have often defended the death penalty on the strength of texts in the Bible and the Koran. In 1995, however, the Vatican released a papal encyclical— Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life)—arguing that the death penalty was permissible only under very special conditions, and that in modern civil society it was not permissible because none of those conditions prevailed. The encyclical argued that the basic doctrinal paradigm for how God wants murderers to be punished is to be found in the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:8–16). Abel was murdered for no good reason by his brother, Cain, and upon discovery God inflicted on him a threefold punishment: he was cursed, he was stigmatized so all would know he was a murderer, and he was banished. He was not killed; indeed, God threatened dire punishment on anyone who would ‘‘raise his hand’’ against Cain. Early in the history of the Biblical peoples as this story is, it is unquestionably vivid and telling. Whether its impact is negated by later passages in the Bible, in which the death penalty for many crimes is endorsed, is a matter of controversy among scholars.

Christians often appeal to ‘‘the sanctity of life,’’ or at least the sanctity of human life; but this appeal cuts both ways in the controversy over the death penalty. Its opponents think executions fly in the face of the sanctity of human life; but its friends will cite this religious idea as their most important reason for favoring this punishment. If we are created in ‘‘the image of God’’ (Genesis 9:6), and if this is the source and nature of the sanctity of our lives, then the crime of murder is the gravest and most radical violation of that sanctity imaginable. It requires an adequate response to the offender’s crime, and the only adequate response is to put the offender to death.

There is much more in the Bible relevant to the death penalty besides the story of Cain and Abel and the imago dei , and Jews, Christians, and Muslims have been adroit and energetic in interpreting their scriptures to support their preferred view about the death penalty. In secular societies, however, or in nations whose religious history is nonbiblical (apart from western imperialism), other arguments are required to establish public policy and the principles governing the criminal justice system.

Secular Arguments

Defenders of the death penalty typically divide between those who rely on consequentialist (crime preventive) considerations, and those who rely on deontic (retributive) considerations. Arguments of the former kind depend on empirical evidence but the latter do not; they rely on moral intuitions and a priori reasoning. In a day when the death penalty was used for a wide variety of crimes and long-term imprisonment had yet to be practiced, it was plausible to stress the death penalty as a necessary means to the end of public safety. The death penalty could be used as a means to that end in either or both of two ways: as a deterrent , striking fear in would-be felons, or as incapacitation, effectively preventing recidivism in any form.

The chief source of support for the claim of superior deterrence was essentially this argument: Persons fear death more than imprisonment; the greater the fear the better the deterrent. That argument involves two empirical claims, raising the question of what (if any) evidence can be enlisted in their support. Little or no empirical evidence had been brought to bear on them until half a century ago. In the early 1950s in the United States, social scientists compared homicide rates in adjacent states (some with, others without the death penalty), homicide rates in all abolition states versus the rates in death penalty states, and homicide rates in a given state before and after abolition. In none of these comparisons was any evidence found of a superior deterrent effect thanks to the death penalty.

The debate was heightened in the mid1970s, when statistical methods borrowed from econometrics purported to show that each execution during the middle years of this century was correlated with eight or so fewer homicides. Close scrutiny established that the purported special deterrent effect (the claim that each execution caused eight or so fewer homicides) was an artifact of the methodology and not a reliable, reproducible result. By the mid-1980s, social scientists had lost interest in further research of this sort. The most recent review of a half century of deterrence research concluded: ‘‘Neither economists nor sociologists, nor persons from any other discipline (law, psychology, engineering, etc.) have produced credible evidence of a significant deterrent effect for capital punishment. And not a single investigation to date has produced any indication that capital punishment deters capital murders—the crime of direct theoretical and policy concern’’ (Bailey and Peterson, p. 154).

Research on incapacitation, by contrast, has been infrequent and less rigorous. A study of the behavior in prison and (where relevant) after release of more then five hundred offenders on death row who were resentenced in the 1970s as ordered by the Court in Furman showed that a half dozen of these murderers killed again. Many committed other felonies, but hundreds (if the evidence is reliable) were guilty of no further crimes. Since there is no reliable way of predicting which convicted murderers will recidivate, recidivist murder can be prevented only by executing every person convicted of murder. This will strike all but a few as excessively draconian as well as immoral (because it involves ‘‘punishing’’ some prior to their having recidivated, and it involves ‘‘punishing’’ others who will not become guilty of any recidivist crimes at all). Bureau of Justice statistics show that among death row prisoners in the 1990s, perhaps one in eleven had a previous conviction of some form of criminal homicide. Obviously, imprisonment failed to incapacitate these recidivist offenders. But there is no known method by means of which the courts or prison authorities could have identified the nine percent who would become recidivist murderers. Since a mandatory death penalty is unconstitutional, it is not clear what can practically and legally be done to reduce further (and ideally eliminate) this recidivism by convicted murderers.

However, as the Supreme Court’s rulings in the 1970s limited the death penalty to the punishment of murder and prohibited mandatory death penalties as well, the role of empirical arguments on behalf of the superior preventive effects of the death penalty has steadily shrunk, in favor of the a priori argument that relies entirely on desert and retribution. Here the essential argument goes as follows: Justice requires lex talionis , that is, that the punishment fit the crime; the punishment that best fits the crime of murder is the death penalty. Or, in a slightly different version: Murderers deserve to die, and justice requires that we inflict deserved punishments.

The classic objection to any argument of this form, in which the proper punishment for a crime is held to lie in making the punishment as close to the crime as possible, is that it cannot be generalized—or can be generalized only with absurd results. There is no punishment of this sort to ‘‘fit’’ a kidnapper who has no children, a bankrupt embezzler, or a traitor, a homeless arsonist, and a host of other serious offenders. As for the crimes of rape and torture, we could rape and torture the convicted offender, but the very idea is (or ought to be) morally repugnant. A retributivist can, of course, abandon lex talionis in favor of a principle of proportionality: the graver the crime the more severe the deserved punishment. This principle has great intuitive appeal; abolitionists who advocate life without the possibility of parole accept this principle. However, it does not require the death penalty. On the assumption that murder is the worst crime, all this principle requires is that murderers receive the severest punishment permissible. In sum, whereas retributivists have a plausible answer to the question, Who deserves to be punished? (Answer: all and only the guilty), they do not have a plausible answer to the next question, What is the deserved punishment? Their most plausible answer—murderers deserve the most severe punishment permissible—does not by itself provide any defense of the death penalty.

Opponents of the death penalty often point to the incompatibility of this practice with respect for the right to life, the value of even the worst lives, and human dignity. None of these normative considerations, however, quite succeeds in providing a rational ground to oppose all executions. Since at least the time of John Locke (1632–1704), defense of the death penalty can be made consistent with our ‘‘natural’’ and ‘‘inalienable’’ right to life on the understanding that the murderer forfeits his right to life. Even apart from forfeiture, it can be argued that the right to life is not absolute; few think it is morally wrong to take the life of an unjust aggressor if there is no other way to prevent an innocent person from being murdered. As for the value of human life, either this is a disguised way of asserting that the death penalty is morally wrong (and thus cannot be a reason for that judgment except by begging the question) or it is an empirical claim about convicted murderers (and thus open to doubt because of the belief that in the case of some murderers, whatever value is to be found by them or by society in their lives is cancelled or outweighed by the value to others of executing them). As for human dignity and the death penalty, proponents of the death penalty will argue that it no more confers immunity from a lawful execution than does the right to life. Perhaps the most that can be said about these three normative considerations is that they put the burden of argument on the defenders of the death penalty. A better argument against the death penalty starts from a well-known liberal principle of state interference: society, and government as its instrument, ought not to intervene coercively in individual lives except to pursue a goal of paramount social importance and then only by the least invasive, restrictive, destructive means. With this as the major premise (roughly equivalent to the principle familiar in constitutional law of ‘‘substantive due process’’), the abolitionist can then concede as a minor premise that reducing violent crime is a goal of paramount social importance. The crucial step in the argument is the next one, the twofold empirical claim that longterm imprisonment is (a) a sufficient means to that end; and (b) a less restrictive, coercive means to that end. The evidence for (a) is partly negative (the failure of social science to discover any persuasive evidence of the superiority of the death penalty as a deterrent, and the practical and legal impossibility of killing all convicted murderers to maximize incapacitation), and partly positive (the record of successful social control both in prison and in the general public without recourse to the death penalty in a dozen different American abolition jurisdictions spanning a century and a half ). The evidence for (b) is partly direct (convicted murderers themselves show by the relative rarity both of suicide, or even attempted suicide, on death row and of death prisoners who ‘‘volunteer’’ for death by refusing appeals that they believe that death for them is far more invasive and destructive than even LWOP) and partly indirect (opponents of the death penalty believe that death is more severe than LWOP, and so do its supporters).

International Law of Human Rights

Probably the most influential factor in shaping the future of the death penalty is international human rights law. In 1966 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was adopted by the General Assembly of the UN, and it came into force in 1976. The Covenant provided that ‘‘no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading punishment or torture.’’ It was clear that this language was on a collision course with the death penalty. The United States ratified the Covenant but took explicit exception to two other provisions: the prohibition against executing juveniles (persons under eighteen at the time of the crime) and pregnant women. In 1989 the General Assembly adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant, asserting that ‘‘No one within the jurisdiction of a State party to the present Optional Protocol shall be executed.’’ This protocol came into force in 1991. Concurrently, the Organization of American States adopted in 1990 a Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty. Interpreting and enforcing these protocols continues to challenge signatory nations, and the United States is by no means the only country seeking for ways to disregard their mandate. Nevertheless, these developments in conjunction with the condition placed on nations wishing to join the Council of Europe that they abolish the death penalty suggest the direction in which the future will unfold (Council of Europe 1998; Schabas).

Bibliography:

• American Bar Association, House of Delegates. ‘‘Recommendation [of a moratorium on executions pending reforms in the administration of the death penalty].’’ Law and Contemporary Problems 61, no. 4 (1998): 219–231.
• Bailey, William, and Peterson, Ruth D. ‘‘Murder, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence: A Review of the Literature.’’ In The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies. Edited by H. A. Bedan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pages 135–161.
• Baldus, David; Pulaski, Jr., Charles; and Woodworth, George Equal Justice and the Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis. Boston, Mass., Northeastern University Press, 1990.
• Beccaria, Cesare. On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings. Edited by Richard Bellamy. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Bedau, Hugo Adam. ‘‘The Decline of Executive Clemency in Capital Cases.’’ New York University Review of Law & Social Change 18, no. 2 (1990–1991): 255–272.
• Bedau, Hugo Adam. The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Bedau, Hugo Adam. ‘‘Abolishing the Death Penalty Even for the Worst Murderers.’’ In The Killing State: Capital Punishment in Law, Politics, and Culture. Edited by Austin Sarat. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pages 40–59.
• Block, Brian, and Hostettler, John. Hanging in the Balance: A History of the Abolition of Capital Punishment in Britain. Winchester, U.K.: Waterside Press, 1997.
• Bowers, William ‘‘The Capital Jury Project: Rationale, Design, and Early Findings.’’ Indiana Law Journal 70 (1995): 1043–1102.
• Davis, Michael. Justice in the Shadow of Death: Rethinking Capital and Lesser Punishments. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996.
• Evans, Richard Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany 1600–1987. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1996. Great Britain. Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1949–1953. Report. London: H.M.S.O., 1953.
• Hodgkinson, Peter, and Rutherford, Andrew. Capital Punishment: Global Issues and Prospects. Winchester, U.K.: Waterside Press, 1996.
• Hood, Roger. The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective. 2d ed. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1996.
• International Commission of Jurists. Administration of the Death Penalty in the United States. Geneva: International Commission of Jurists, 1996.
• Joyce, James Avery. Capital Punishment: A World View. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1961.
• Mackey, Philip English, ed. Voices against Death: American Opposition to Capital Punishment, 1787–1975. New York: Burt Franklin, 1976.
• Masur, Louis Rites of Execution: Capital Punishment and the Transformation of American Culture, 1776–1865. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
• Megivern, James The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1997.
• Meltsner, Michael. Cruel and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment. New York: Random House, 1973.
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. Death Row, U.S.A., Spring 1999. New York, N.Y.: NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., 1999.
• Pojman, Louis, and Reiman, Jeffrey. The Death Penalty: For and Against. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.
• Pope John Paul The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae). New York: Random House, 1995.
• Radelet, Michael; Bedau, Hugo Adam; and Putnam, Constance E. In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases. Rev. ed. Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University Press, 1994.
• Radelet, Michael, and Zsembik, Barbara A. ‘‘Executive Clemency in Post- Furman Capital Cases.’’ University of Richmond Law Review 27 (1993): 289–314.
• Sarat, Austin, ed. The Killing State: Capital Punishment in Law, Politics, and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Schabas, William The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law. 2d ed. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
• Scott, George Ryley. The History of Capital Punishment. London: Torchstream Books, 1950.
• S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment 1998. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 1999.
• S. General Accounting Office. Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities. Washington, D.C.: General Accounting Office, 1990.
• S. Staff Report, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, House Judiciary Committee, 103d Congress, 1st Session. Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions. Washington, D.C.: Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, 1993.

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Capital Punishment in United States Research Paper

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Introduction

Bibliography

Capital punishment refers to execution of individuals found guilty of first degree murder. A murder is considered first degree if the prosecution establishes that the accused had clear intent of carrying out the crime otherwise referred to as malicious aforethought 1 .

The methods of execution have varied overtime and from one jurisdiction to another but the most common nowadays is death by lethal injection. Crimes that are subjected to capital punishment vary from state to state, but first degree murder is a capital offence in all jurisdictions only that the level aggravation may vary. This paper will discuss about capital punishment in US in general and the challenges facing this practice

Capital punishment dates as far back as 1608 in the British North America colonies when Captain George Kendall was executed by a firing squad for allegedly spying for the Spanish government 2 . Michigan State has never had capital punishment law whereas states like Hawaii, Alaska, Illinois, Maine, and Minnesota among others have recently abolished death penalty.

Over the years, capital punishment has elicited reactions from social justice crusaders around the world but majority of people in the US have favored it. Those opposed to it especially religious and human rights groups cite moral issues and the sanctity of life as the reasons.

Amnesty International has all along viewed capital punishment in the context of human rights violation and has advocated for its abolition. Other groups are of the opinion that the only deterrence to murder is through execution of the offenders. Becker for instance states that

“I support executing some people convicted of murder because, and only because I believe that it deters other murders. If I did not believe that, I would oppose capital punishment, because revenge and other possible motives should not be a basis for public policy.” 3

Death penalty has drawn support and criticism in equal measure. Research shows most states that still uphold the sentence do so to address the rise of violent crimes. In the last ten years studies show that violent crimes have dropped by half in US something that has brought a corresponding decline in the number of death penalty sentences. This means that death sentence has at least some influence in deterrence of new similar crimes.

Those who support capital punishment argue that it provides justice to both the victims and offenders and also deters people from engaging in crime. However social scientists contend that death sentence discourages murder the same way long imprisonment would and therefore life imprisonment is preferable.

Human rights groups argue that if it is wrong for an individual to kill, it is equally wrong for the society to kill since two wrongs do not make a right. Some of the reasons why some sections of the society feel that death penalty should be done away with are the number of innocent people who are on death row.

Many people believe capital punishment is morally impermissible. Most people opine that death sentences are demeaning and out of touch with the modern culture and in most cases capital punishment is administered in a way that does not follow the laid down legal provision. They assert that as applied, capital punishment may end up executing innocent people, and also that it lacks consistency and uses crude methods of delivering justice 4 .

The most compelling argument in support of capital punishment is that failing to execute murderers may in itself put more lives in danger.

As evidenced, criminal law is left in a lose-lose situation; by executing offenders the state is said to engage in social injustice, yet by failing to execute murderers is putting the lives of innocent citizens in harm’s way 5 ; failure to uphold death sentences in such instances is therefore considered immoral.

There should be balance in application of criminal law and civil law in punishing the offenders and guarantee the safety and security of victims of violent crimes. 6

Indeed, opinion poll shows that Americans are split between those who support death penalty and those in favor of life imprisonment without parole. Given this choice, the public this year (2008) splits roughly evenly, with 49% saying the death penalty is the better penalty for murder, while 46% opt for life imprisonment; this split is roughly the same as in 2006, when this question was last asked 7 . (Newport 2008).

Thus, death penalty in my view should be upheld to serve as a warning to potential offenders. This gives both closure and justice to the victim’s family and a way for repaying the bad deed to the murderer. However, before the death sentence verdict is reached, prosecution must be thorough in their investigation and evidence collection to avoid incidences of botched trials and wrong convictions.

Becker, Gary. “ The Morality of Capital Punishment . ” Project syndicate. 2006. Web.

“ Death Penalty Information Center .” Deathpenaltyinfo. Web.

Newport, Frank. “ In U.S., 64% Support Death Penalty in Cases of Murder “. Gallup. 2008. Web.

Sunstein, Rose & Arthur Vermeule. “ Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs.” The Law School, The University of Chicago, 2005.

• “Death Penalty Information Center,” deathpenaltyinfo.
• Becker Gary. “The Morality of Capital Punishment. ” project syndicate. 2006.
• Rose Sunstein & Arthur Vermeule. “ Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs,” the Law School, the University of Chicago . 2005.
• Frank Newport. “In U.S., 64% Support Death Penalty in Cases of Murder,” Gallup , 2008.
• Debates on Capital Punishment in the US
• Death Penalty: Alternatives and Abolition
• Deterrence theory and scientific findings on the deterrence value of severe punishment
• The Death Penalty in the Modern Society
• Deterrence: Discouraging Offenders from Re-Committing Crimes
• The Ethical and Legal Standards of Capital Punishment
• Is the Death Penalty Effective?
• Isolation and Capital Punishments
• Death Penalty: Ryan Mathews Case
• Does the Death Sentence Offer Justice to the Criminal?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Capital Punishment: An Inquiry Into Policy Decisions In The United States Research Paper Examples

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Capital punishment or death sentence is the highest punishment in the world, some say it’s wrong to end a life but according to some criminals who play with other’s life should be dealt with appropriately.

United States of America is one of the four democratic industrialized countries that still practices Capital Punishment. In United States, it is a legal sentence in 32 states but before deceleration of independence, it was enforced in all colonies. There are currently 18 states where Capital Punishment is not practiced.

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Capital Punishment Research Papers Examples

Introduction.

I remain fascinated with the idea of when the first recorded law of capital punishment exists in history and why some Western countries still impose this legal answer to the evil people do unto one another in the 21st century. This academic investigation provides an excellent opportunity for pursuing and answering my inquiry of the first recorded historical documentation of capital punishment as a legal finding for a person found guilty of a crime and exploring the arguments why, in particular the United States – a great Western democracy continues imposing this form of punishment in some of the 50 states.

Good Research Paper On Death Penalty In The United States

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Thesis: The Death Penalty is not fair because innocent people are convicted, some have been almost executed, some have been executed and exculpatory evidence was discovered post execution and some have been executed despite of exculpatory evidence. The high cost of prosecuting Death Penalty cases reflects this.

INTRODUCTION I In spite of far reaching ramifications many states in America still apply and carry out the Death Sentence.

A. The Death Sentence is obtained and carried out inconsistently. B. Death Sentence cases cost much more to prosecute than those of life without parole because of the finality of the sentence.

Example Of Race And Capital Punishment Research Paper

Capital punishment or death penalty is one of the most controversial and notorious form of correction. It has been practiced throughout history but currently, only 38 states practice it. In most of the places where it is being practiced, a lot of precaution is used. Research has shown that there is a relation between race and capital punishment. This practice has been ostensibly stated as a remnant of the past. Apparently, the minority communities have a higher chance of being slapped with a death sentence.

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Imposition of the death penalty as a legal form of punishment has been practiced in America since the early colonial times, when the concept was imported by the colonists from Great Britain (Malik & Holdsworth, 2014, p.693). The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the published views and opinions offered by various authors on the death penalty and it’s use as a punishment in today’s America.

The Research

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1.0 Criminal Injustice 1.1 Introduction 2.0 Injustice in Criminal Law 2.1 Death penalty policy 2.2 Three strike law 3.0 Conclusion

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Death penalty, being preserved within the U.S. legal system, has repeatedly become a highly controversial subject in terms of international law-, the U.S. statutory and case law- and ethics-related discourses. For the purposes of future discussing this issue, we would like to state that, in my mind, preserving death penalty in the U.S. system of punishments contradicts international legal and ethical norms. To be more precise in legal terms, death penalty is the punishment, aimed at taking away person’s right to life, which is considered to be most important basic human right.

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This research paper addresses the following issues regarding capital punishment: Are convicted defendants easily convicted and sent to death row because they cannot afford high dollar lawyers? Is there a moral difference when the state kills as opposed to an individual? Should punishment be based on "eye for an eye" edict or the one that says to "turn the other cheek"?

For the purposes of this paper, research is focused mainly on the United States.

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This study will include information gleaned from the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. website and the United Methodist Church website. Readers will learn the purpose of the website and the mission and services of each denomination. Each denomination addresses tough issues such as homosexuality, the war in the Middle East, and even immigration. Issues such as these have caused denominations to split and create new denominations in the recent past. Ironically, the Presbyterian Church and the Methodist Church are currently debating these hot topics in the Christian faith at their annual conferences this year.

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Criminal punishments in the society are approved by many as a necessary action against those who commit crimes. Despite this universal appreciation of punishment, various theories have different justifications for such punishments. The Kantian approach differs from the utilitarianism approach in justifying criminal punishments. This paper analyzes how the Kantian justification for criminal punishment differs from the utilitarian approach,

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Within the major profession of criminology, one recurring problem is the explanation of criminal behavior patterns and their relationship to crime, involving the subtopics of the sociological legal and psychiatric aspects of crime which contribute to defining and elaborating on criminal behavior.

Section 2: Body Sections

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