As of April 27, 2009, 15 states and the District of Columbia have moved to ban capital punishment in their jurisdictions. This leaves 34 states in the U.S. that still allow for capital punishment upon conviction of certain crimes.
According to Amnesty International statistics, approximately half of the U.S. population now prefers life without the possibility of parole, and every state that offers the death penalty also offers life without parole as a sentencing option.
The federal government still retains the power to sentence defendants to death for federal capital crimes even if the defendant commits the crime in a state that does not have the death penalty at the state level because, in keeping with the idea of federalism, federal law takes precedent over state laws. There are some differences between the federal death penalty and state death penalties.
First, the federal death penalty is not used as frequently as the state death penalty. After the initial ban on capital punishment in 1972, the federal death penalty was not used at all until the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 was enacted in order to include murders committed through the process of illegal drug trading in federal jurisdiction so that defendants convicted of such a murder could be punished by execution.
In 1994, the scope of the federal death penalty was again increased by the Federal Death Penalty Act in order to set the death penalty as a possible punishment for more than 60 crimes, such as murder of a Supreme Court Justice, espionage, murder for hire and death resulting from aircraft hijacking.
The major difference between the federal death penalty and state death penalty is that the federal capital crimes go far beyond murder in the first degree, whereas the majority of state capital crimes are in fact murders in the first degree with one or more aggravating circumstances as prescribed by state legislatures. In the case of a defendant accused of committing both a federal and a state capital offense, the federal charge will supersede the state charge even if that means the ultimate punishment is more stringent than the state's ultimate punishment.
The Supreme Court has been influential when it comes to interpreting capital punishment under the 8th Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment. First the Supreme Court has (for the moment) declared that capital punishment is in fact constitutional in its "Gregg v. Georgia" decision.
This forced anti-death penalty supporters to reevaluate how to present cases to the Supreme Court that over time might have the power to chip away at the validity of capital punishment. Because the Supreme Court has heard and ruled in cases that limit different aspects of the death penalty, such as when it is appropriate to use capital punishment, whom it is appropriate to sentence, and what evidence can be admissible to capital trials, the Supreme Court has impacted capital punishment practices and norms in the U.S.
Since "Gregg v. Georgia," the Supreme Court has issued several appropriate decisions regarding the death penalty. First it ruled in 1977 in "Coker v. Georgia" that the death penalty was excessive punishment for the rape of an adult woman that does not result in death.
I support the Supreme Court in its decision because I do not think that capital punishment should be applied unless a human life has been taken. In 1978 with "Lockett v. Ohio," the Supreme Court declared state laws restricting the number of mitigating circumstances a jury could consider in a capital case unconstitutional.
Again, I believe the Supreme Court made the correct decision because a defendant guilty of a capital crime should have every opportunity to present evidence that might explain his actions. Finally, in my favorite decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in "Payne v. Tennessee" that states can in fact allow victim impact statements during the sentencing phase of a capital trial. The court's reasoning was that a jury should be able to consider the effects of a crime as they debate sentencing, and I agree whole-heartedly with the court. I think the effects of a crime on the victim's family, neighborhood and greater community help a jury determine the heinousness of a crime and therefore whether the death penalty might be an applicable course of punishment.
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Do yourself a favor and don't respond the CT lets people make poorly written opinion columns on controversial issues to entice you to respond. They are trying to get mad so you will write a counter opinion article. Do not let them exploit you like that, do not play their game. Just walk away, you are not changing anyone's opinion don't bother it just helps the CT.
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Echo Anon below. That's why I only read LTE's.
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haha even if that isn't exactly the case that is still a pretty funny assertion. Either way the death penalty is in full effect every day with trials being held throughout cities nationwide. Taking the law into your own hands is just so much quicker.
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There's no reasoning with someone so ignorant as to believe that it's easy to fake mental retardation, or that we should start executing criminals below the age of 18, or just knows in their gut that the death penalty deters, despite the inconclusive nature of every study done on the subject.
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The author is right. From reading this column, I can't tell if she's faking mental retardation or not. If murderers thought about the death penalty before committing their murders, they would just take their victims to a state that outlawed capital punishment and do it there. The death penalty is not a deterrent. It's pricey vengeance.
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Of course the death penalty deters. 16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty deterrence. A surprise? No. Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life. What prospect of a negative outcome doesn't deter some? There isn't one. Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 16 studies. They don't. Studies which don't find for deterrence don't say no one is deterred, but that they couldn't measure those deterred. Even the premier anti death penalty scholar, Hugo Adam Bedau, accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. Yet, the evidence is compelling and un refuted that death is feared more than life, as the studies confirm.
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Death penalty support is really about 80%, when asking about the only crimes relevant to the death penalty - capital murders . . . 81% of the American people supported the execution of Timothy McVeigh . . . 85% of Connecticut respondents voiced support for serial/rapist murderer Michael Ross' "voluntary" execution. . . . . .79% support the death penalty for terrorists . . . . "78% of (Nebraska's) 3,232 respondents said they supported the death penalty for “heinous crimes." . . . . . 82% in the US supported executing Saddam Hussein
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An enlightened society doesn't kill people.
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Personally I'd rather be quickly executed than jailed for several years. The biggest deterrent to crime are the shows that film prison life on the inside, at least it is for me. Another good deterrent is having a reason not to commit crimes like a good life and friends.
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Well, Grasshopper, in that case maybe I don't want us to be an "enlightened society". Allowing the scum of earth to live free and easy on the money of others hardly seems "enlightened" to me. Some people are cancers on society, and amputation is the only answer.
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Thanks for proving my point.
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Actually Grasshopper, your point remains far from proven. Please demonstrate to me why we should spend the limited resources of our society on the feeding, housing, clothing, and medical care of rapists, and child molesters.
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That's easy, Snake. To the left, "enlightened" means the "the government" should take care care of everyone's needs while the individual bears no responsibility for his own well being and should not be punished when he does wrong. Risk and reward, failure and consequences, well, just aren't FAIR!! Thomas Jefferson made a huge mistake in the Declaration. It was supposed to say "Life, Liberty and Government-guaranteed Happiness." Too bad poor Jefferson wasn't enlightened enough.
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