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Capital Punishment: United States
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Capital Punishment in Context is designed to supplement a variety of college courses. It contains cases of individuals who were sentenced to death in the United States. Each case presents a narrative account of the individual's crime, trial and punishment, along with guidelines for analysis, discussion and further research on issues raised by the case. The narratives are supplemented by resources such as original police reports from the homicide investigation and transcripts of witness' testimony. After reading the case, you can further explore issues by following a series of links to additional information. Each case, with its related materials, opens a path through the criminal justice system.
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Capital punishment... called the [D]eath penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. Historically, the execution of criminals and political opponents was used by nearly all societies—both to punish crime and to suppress political dissent. Among countries around the world, almost all European and many Pacific Area states (including Australia, New Zealand and Timor Leste), and Canada have abolished capital punishment. In Latin America, most states have completely abolished the use of capital punishment, while some countries, however, like Brazil, allow for capital punishment only in exceptional situations, such as treason committed during wartime. The United States, Guatemala, most of the Caribbean and the majority of democracies in Asia (e.g. Japan and India) and Africa (e.g.
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Capital punishment has been practiced in the United States since the founding of the republic. During the founding period, several crimes were punishable by death in the 13 states: murder, treason, piracy, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, sodomy, counterfeiting, horse theft, and slave rebellion. Today, in the 36 states that permit capital punishment, premeditated murder is virtually the only crime for which the punishment is death. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty. The United States government may impose the death penalty for certain federal crimes, such as treason.
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"Capital punishment is the infliction of the death penalty on persons convicted of a crime" (Americana 596). Killing convicted felons has been one of the most widely practiced forms of criminal punishment in the United States. Currently, the states that do no practice the death penaly are Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin. However, for the remaining states that do practice the death penalty, it has been a topic of debate for many years. There are two parties who argue over its many points, including whether or not it is a fitting and adequate punishment, whether or not it acts as a deterrent to crime and whether or not it is morally wrong. These two classes of people can be grouped together as the retentionists, or the proponents, and the abolitionists, or the opponents (596).
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Capital punishment information is collected annually as part of the National Prisoner Statistics program (NPS-8). This data series is collected in two parts: data on persons under sentence of death are obtained from the department of correction in each jurisdiction currently authorizing capital punishment and are updated annually; information on the status of death penalty statutes is obtained from the Office of the Attorney General in each of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Government. Data collection forms and more detailed tables are available in Correctional Populations in the United States, published annually. NPS-8 covers all persons under sentence of death at any time during the year who were held in a State or Federal nonmilitary correctional facility. Included are capital offenders transferred from prison to mental hospitals and those who may have escaped from custody. Excluded are persons whose death sentences have been overturned by the court, regardless of their current incarceration status.
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In Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the court allowed capital punishment to resume in certain states; in 1977, Gary Gilmore, executed by a firing squad in Utah, became the first to die under the new laws. Today, 38 states and the federal government have reinstituted the death penalty. In 1982, Texas became the first state to execute a prisoner using lethal injection; some 75% of executions now employ this method. By 2006... concerns over evidence suggesting that some persons had experienced extremely painful executions due to the poor administration of the injections led several courts to review how lethal injections were conducted and set stricter standards for them. The gas chamber, hanging, the firing squad, and, most commonly, the electric chair are still used in some states; Florida's electrocutions, however, have been heavily criticized following several grisly malfunctions. Texas easily leads all other states in the number of executions carried out, although it imposes the death penalty in murder cases less often than the national average.
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