The Death Penalty: Specific Issues

"The death penalty deters crime."

• The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment | Historical Evidence of Deterrence: Relevant portions of Wesley Lowe's Pro Death Penalty Page presenting the deterrance argument favoring the death penalty.
• Deterrence | Incapacitation | Maximum public safety: Pro-death penalty members of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death? present arguments that the death penalty deters crime; prevents murderers from repeat offending; and increases public safety by virtue of incapacitation.

"The death penalty does not deter crime."

• Capital Punishment is Not a Deterrent to Capital Crimes: Hugo Adam Bedeau advances a number of arguments in his The Case Against the Death Penalty against the hypothesis that the death penalty deters murder or other capital crimes.
• "Deterrence and the Death Penalty: The Views of the Experts": by Michael L. Radelet and Ronald L. Akers. Circa 1995. Presents results of a survey of 67 of 70 current and former presidents of three professional criminology organizations -- the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association -- on the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Over 80 percent of these experts believe existing research fails to support the theory that the death penalty deters murder.
• Facts About Deterrence and the Death Penalty: A fact sheet from the Death Penalty Information Center. A comparison death penalty states with non-death penalty states shows that most death penalty states have higher murder rates. Also presents the views of law enforcement executives and professional criminologists on the deterrent effect of the death penalty.
• On the Front Line: Law Enforcement Views on the Death Penalty: by Richard C. Dieter. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, February 1995. A national poll of randomly selected police chiefs in the U.S. indicates that police executives consider the death penalty one of the least effect means of controlling or deterring crime.
• Doesn't deter crime: Argument against the deterrence theory of capital punishment presented by an anti-death penalty member of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death?.

Retribution & Justice for Murder Victims
Death penalty advocates justify capital punishment under the principle of lex talionis, or "an eye for an eye" -- the belief that punishment should fit the crime. In particular, people who favor capital punishment argue that murderers should be executed in retribution for their crimes and that such retribution serves justice for murder victims and their survivors. Death penalty opponents emphasize the sacredness of life, arguing that killing is always wrong whether by individual or by the state, and that justice is best served through reconciliation.

General Arguments

• "Victims and the Death Penalty": American Bar Association, Focus on Law Studies 12(2), Spring 1997. Participants in the ABA's two-week online Focus on the Death Penalty discuss what priority should be given to the interests of victims of crime, and whether black murder victims and their survivors are afforded the same consideration under the death penalty as white murder victims and their survivors. See also Racial Disparities.

"The death penalty gives justice to murder victims and their families by serving retribution on murderers."

• "Death Penalty Serves Justice to Victims": by John Hart. Kansas State Collegian, 2 February 1995. Referring to the man who raped and murdered a friend and was sentenced to 40 years, Hart argues that "Gideon and others like him have already sentenced their victims to death. Executing murderers removes an element from society that has held the value of all life in contempt. This serves to uphold the value of not only the victim's life, but all life."
• Lex Talionis: Arguments for the death penalty as retributive justice presented by pro-death penalty members of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death?.
• Victims' Voices: A resource provided by Justice For All, a crime victims' advocacy organization in Texas that favors the death penalty. "This page will be, unfortunately, an ever-growing testimony from victims and survivors of victims, telling their stories; what happened to them, what happened to their loved ones, how they came to be involved in Justice For All." Most accounts here were provided by survivors of murder victims.

"The death penalty is state-sanctioned killing that only continues the cycle of violence."

• Capital Punishment is Unjustified Retribution: Hugo Adam Bedeau, in his The Case Against the Death Penalty, argues that the death penalty for murders is not, as is commonly supposed, "a punishment that fits the crime."
• Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation: Abolitionist organization comprising relatives of homicide victims. "MVFR knows that - in spite of that pain -- vengeance is not the answer. The taking of another life by state killing only continues the cycle of violence." One member writes, "To say that the death of any other person would be just retribution is to insult the immeasurable worth of our loved ones who are victims."
• Victims' Families who Oppose Death Penalty FAQ: Links to articles and letters from or about families of murder victims and their position on the death penalty from the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty web site.
• Chance for convict to "pay-back" society: Cites the case of Leopold and Loeb to argue that life imprisonment permits convicted murderers with the opportunity to atone; presented by an anti-death penalty member of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death?.

Executing the Innocent
Opponents of the death penalty argue that there is a danger of executing innocent persons, and cite actual cases in which defendents were erroneously convicted of, and sometimes executed for, capital crimes. Death penalty opponents view recent laws which restrict the appeals process as tantamount to increasing the potential for executing innocent people; see Limiting Appeals. Death penalty proponents argue that there are sufficient safeguards against executing persons and that the danger of executing the innocent is small.

Erroneous Convictions & Executions of Innocent People

• Capital Punishment is Irreversible: Hugo Adam Bedeau, in his The Case Against the Death Penalty, presents a number of cases of erroneous capital convictions and of executions of people who were probably innocent of the crimes for which they died.
• "Some Twentieth Century Erroneous Convictions": by Michael L. Radelet. From Michael L. Radelet, Hugo Adam Bedau, and Constance Putnam, In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992) and Bedau & Radelet, "Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases," Stanford Law Revew 40 (1987). Presents case information on 24 men executed for crimes of which they were almost certainly innocent.
• Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions: Staff Report by the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, 103rd Congress, First Session; prepared with the assistance of the Death Penalty Information Center; 21 October 1993. Documents 48 cases of persons since 1930 who served time on death row for capital offenses due to significant evidence of their innocence. Problems identified leading to these erroneous convictions included racial prejudice, the pressure to prosecute, inadequate counsel, and government misconduct, and the question of whether the justice system has adequate safeguards against executing innocent people is addressed.
• Innocence and the Death Penalty: The Increasing Danger of Executing the Innocent: by Richard C. Dieter. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, July 1997. Since 1973, 69 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence emerged; of these, 21 were released since 1993, after the first Innocence and the Death Penalty report was issued. This report particularly looks at the effects in recent years of the narrowing of opportunities to appeal or to raise newly discovered evidence of innocence.
• Additional Cases of Innocent and Possible Innocence Since the Publication of Innocence and the Death Penalty, October, 1993: Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, July 1997; updated 8 October 1997. Summarizes cases of persons released from death row because of evidence of innocent since the original 1993 report; continuously updated as new cases occur.
• "Death Row Prisoner Must Prove Actual Innocence": From the Prison Law Office site The Other Side of the Wall, describing the Ninth Circuit case of Carriger v. Stewart (9th Cir. Sept. 8, 1996) regarding the high standard of proof required for a defendant to obtain relief from the death penalty once a conviction has been obtained.
• Wrongful Murder Convictions: A listing with case information from the ASC Critical Criminology Division of selected cases of persons in Illinois and the U.S. released from prison because of court findings of strong evidence of innocence; includes both capital and non-capital cases.
• Possibility of innocent death: Arguments on the danger of executing the innocent under the death penalty presented by an anti-death penalty member of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death?.
• "How Many Innocent Men Will Be Killed?": by Michael Ross. ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, Human Rights 23(3), Summer 1996. Describes cases of death row inmates released due to evidence of innocence.

Illinois Cases of Exonerated Death Penalty Inmates
On January 31, 2000, following the exonerations of 13 death row inmates found innocent of the capital crimes for which they were convicted, Governor George H. Ryan announced a moratorium on executions in Illinois until a review of the administration of the death penalty in the state could be conducted. A commission is being appointed to conduct the review.

• "How Many Innocent Inmates Are Executed? An Illinois coalition moves to stop the death penalty in the wake of startling statistics": by Ky Henderson. ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, Human Rights 24(4), Fall 1997. In the past 10 years, 17 death row inmates in the U.S. have been released due to evidence of innocence. Of these, 7 were Illinois inmates who served a total among them of 52 years on death row and another 36 years in county jails and state prisons.
• "Failure of the Death Penalty in Illinois": This five-part series published in November 1999 in the Chicago Tribune described the problems in the Illinois criminal justice system which led to the at least 13 persons being convicted of capital crimes of which they were innocent.
• Governor Ryan declares moratorium on executions, will appoint commission to review capital punishment system: Governor George H. Ryan, Governor of the State of Illinois, press release, January 31, 2000.
• Death Penalty: The National Public Radio program Talk of the Nation for February 2, 2000 discusses the Illinois moratorium and the question of whether the death penalty can be fairly applied. Listening to the radio program requires the free program RealAudio.

The Case of "Crazy" Joe Spaziano

• "Two newspapers, two sides to the same story": by David Barstow. The American Editor, July/August 1996.
• "Anatomy of a Death Penalty Case: Did Florida Almost Execute an Innocent Man?": by Tena Jamison Lee. ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, Human Rights 23(3), Summer 1996. Looks at the case of "Crazy" Joe Spaziano, who was convicted of capital murder in 1973 on the basis of the testimony of a "16-year-old who held a grudge and 'remembered' key facts under hypnosis." See also the related press release of 5 September 1996.

Government Misconduct
Death penalty opponents point at government misconduct as a major cause of erroneous convictions.

• Killing Justice: Government Misconduct and the Death Penalty: by Michael Kroll. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, March 1992. Case studies of official misconduct -- such as the knowing use of false testimony, the willful supression of evidence, and coerced confessions -- which has at times resulted in the conviction and execution of innocent persons on capital charges.

Politicizing the Death Penalty
As the death penalty becomes a campaign issue, say death penalty proponents, the chances for miscarriages of injustice increase.

• Killing for Votes: The Dangers of Politicizing the Death Penalty Process: by Richard C. Dieter. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, 18 October 1996. "Not only are candidates for legislative office campaigning loudly on the death penalty, even judges and local prosecutors are citing the numbers of people they have sent to death row in their campaigns for office. This political promotion of capital punishment by those responsible for interpreting and implementing the law interferes with the right to a fair hearing and increases the likelihood that innocent defendants will be executed."

Death Penalty Proponents on the Risk of Executing the Innocent
Advocates of the death penalty generally argue either that existing safeguards against executing innocent people are present in the system, especially in the appeals process; or that occasional executions of innocent people are unfortunate, but necessary risks in a society which expects to protect itself.

• Hard to kill a wrongly convicted criminal: Arguments that adequate safeguards against executing innocent people are in place presented by pro-death penalty members of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death?.
• The Risk of Wrongful Execution of Innocents: Relevant portions of Wesley Lowe's Pro Death Penalty Page: "In this imperfect world, citizens are required to take certain risks in exchange for relative safety."

Limiting Appeals & Habeas Corpus Reform
Advocates of the death penalty have called for the acceleration of executions and limiting appeals, which are expensive and which often appear to be frivolous appeals meant to delay the death penalty process. See also Cost of the Death Penalty. Death penalty opponents argue that limiting appeals, whether to save costs or to accelerate executions, comes only at the cost of weakening due process and increasing the chances that innocent people will be convicted and even executed. See also Executing the Innocent and Moratorium on the Death Penalty.

"Appeals are expensive, often frivolous, and should be restricted."
Resources on this argument are on their way.

"Recent laws enacted to limit appeals will result in a higher risk of erroneous convictions and executions of innocent people."

• "What's Happened to Habeas?": by Ronald J. Tabak. ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, Human Rights 23(3), Summer 1996. Examines problems with the federal Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which undermines death row inmate's ability to use federal habeas corpus procedures to challenge unconstitutional convictions or death sentences.
• "Whatever you think about the death penalty, a system that will take life must first give justice....": by Alex J. Hurder. ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, Human Rights 24(1), Winter 1997. Discusses problems with the federal Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which undermines death row inmate's ability to use federal habeas corpus procedures to challenge unconstitutional convictions or death sentences and the American Bar Association's obligation to address the problem. ABA later recommended a moratorium on the death penalty, in part to address problems identified in this article.
• Capital Punishment Costs More than Incarceration: Hugo Adam Bedeau, in his The Case Against the Death Penalty, includes a discussion of federal habeas reform. In nearly half of the death-penalty cases granted review under old (pre-1996) federal habeas corpus provisions, the murder conviction or death sentence was overturned. Restrictions on federal habeas corpus by Congress in 1996 and the ending of funding of regional death penalty "resource centers" which provided counsel on appeal in federal courts will result in an increase in wrongful murder convictions and capital sentences.
• The Impact of Habeas Reform on Innocent People Sentenced to Death: American Civil Liberties Union, 1996. Presents case histories of 9 death row inmates for whom federal habeas was granted after their cases were "reasonably" decided by state courts. Under habeas corpus "reform" measures, none of the men would have eliminated their ability to demonstrate evidence of their innocence. As of the document's writing, 6 of the men had been released from prison because the writ of habeas corpus permitted them to establish actual or probable innocence of the murders of which they were convicted; the other 3 men were awaiting final disposition.

Cost of the Death Penalty
Death penalty opponents argue that capital punishment is expensive, costing more than it would cost to imprison murderers for life. (See also Alternative Sentencing). Proponents of the death penalty argue that the death penalty is a cost-effective alternative to life imprisonment, or that death penalty costs could be lowered by restricting appeals. (See also Limiting Appeals.)

"The death penalty is expensive and costs more than imprisonment."

• Capital Punishment Costs More than Incarceration: Hugo Adam Bedeau, in his The Case Against the Death Penalty, summarizes several studies that demonstrate the high costs associated with the death penalty in comparison with life imprisonment.
• Costs of the Death Penalty: Summarizes four studies from four states on the cost of the death penalty; from the Death Penalty Information Center.
• The High Cost of the Death Penalty to Taxpayers: This fact sheet from Death Penalty Focus of California estimates that, due to constitutionally-mandated safeguards, the death penalty in Los Angeles County costs over $638,991 more per defendant than life imprisonment without possibility of parole. This estimate includes costs of trial, automatic appeals to the state supreme court, and incarcaration.
• Millions Misspent: What Politicians Don't Say About the High Costs of the Death Penalty: by Richard C. Dieter. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, October 1992; revised Fall 1994. "The exorbitant costs of capital punishment are actually making America less safe because badly needed financial and legal resources are being diverted from effective crime fighting strategies." According to this report, some death penalty states release numerous non-capital offenders early to avoid prison overcrowding, in part because of the huge resources devoted to funding capital punishment.
• Less expensive than execution: Argument that life imprisonment is less expensive than the death penalty presented by an anti-death penalty member of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death?.

"The death penalty costs less (or could cost less) than imprisonment."

• More economical than life sentence: Arguments that the death penalty costs less than life without parole presented by pro-death penalty members of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death?.
• Capital Punishment and Its Costs: Relevant portions of Wesley Lowe's Pro Death Penalty Page. Advocates limiting appeals to drive down costs.

Alternative Sentencing

"Life imprisonment without parole is preferable to the death penalty."

• Sentencing for Life: Americans Embrace Alternatives to the Death Penalty: by Richard C. Dieter. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, April 1993. According to this report, most Americans, when presented with alternatives to the death penalty such as life imprisonment without possibility of parole, support the alternatives. However, juries are often not informed when such alternatives exist.
• Capital Punishment is Less Popular than the Alternatives: Hugo Adam Bedeau, in his The Case Against the Death Penalty, cites polls that indicate the majority (51%) of Americans would favor sentencing murderers to life imprisonment without possibility of parole over the death penalty. Even more would support life without parole if convicted murderers were also forced to pay restitution.
• Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty advocates a minimum of 25 years imprisonment before parole eligibility for convicted murders, and life imprisonment without possibility of parole in many cases.
• Polls in the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics: A 1996 poll (an Adobe Acrobat file) conducted by Sam Houston State University found that 73.4 percent of respondents nationwide favored the death penalty for persons convicted of murder, but of those, 20.1 percent no longer favored the death penalty if convicted murderers were given a "true" life sentence (Adobe Acrobat file) -- that is, sentenced to life imprisonment without possiblity of parole.

"Life without parole does not incapacitate convicted murderers."

• Capital Punishment vs. Life Without Parole: Relevant portions of Wesley Lowe's Pro Death Penalty Page, arguing that the "life imprisonment without possibility of parole" option does not incapacitate convicted murderers from committing murders in prison or on escape.

Fairness of the Death Penalty
Death penalty opponents argue that capital punishment in the U.S. is applied arbitrarily and unfairly, particularly in regards to race and inadequate defense for poor people.

General Arguments

• "Arbitrariness and the Death Penalty": American Bar Association, Focus on Law Studies 12(2), Spring 1997. Participants in the ABA's two-week online Focus on the Death Penalty debate whether the application of capital punishment is any less or more arbitrary than it was when in 1972 when the Supreme Court, in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 153 (1972), struck down federal and state capital punishment laws because they were "arbitrary and capricious."
• Capital Punishment is Unfair: Hugo Adam Bedeau, in his The Case Against the Death Penalty, cites racial, gender, and class bias and the ineffectiveness of guided discretion as causes of unfairness in the application of the death penalty.

Racial Disparities
A number of studies indicate that race or ethnic origin of defendants and/or victims have an impact on whether the death penalty is sought.

• Executions by Race of Defendants Executed | Executions by Race of Victims | Race of Death Row Inmates: Statistical tables from the Death Penalty Information Center.
• "Race and the Death Penalty: American Bar Association, Focus on Law Studies 12(2), Spring 1997. Participants in the ABA's two-week online Focus on the Death Penalty discuss whether the death penalty is an area of our justice system which could be characterized as racist or discriminatory.
• "Victims and the Death Penalty": American Bar Association, Focus on Law Studies 12(2), Spring 1997. Participants in the ABA's two-week online Focus on the Death Penalty discuss what priority should be given to the interests of victims of crime, and whether black murder victims and their survivors are afforded the same consideration under the death penalty as white murder victims and their survivors. See also Retribution & Justice for Murder Victims.
• Double Justice: Race and the Death Penalty: Fact sheet from the American Civil Liberties Union summarizing research that appears to substantiate claims of racial disparities in the application of the death penalty.
• Racial Disparities in Federal Death Penalty Prosecutions 1988-1994: Staff Report by the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, 103rd Congress, Second Session; prepared with the assistance of the Death Penalty Information Center, March 1994. Analyzes prosecutions under the federal death penalty provisions of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, showing that 89 percent of defendants selected for capital prosecution have been either African-American or Mexican-American.
• Chatahoochee Judicial District -- the Buckle of the Death Belt: The Death Penalty in Microcosm: by Richard C. Dieter. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, 1991. A detailed analysis of the application of the death penalty in Chattachoochee County, Georgia, where the district attorney seeks the death penalty almost exclusively in cases in which the victim of a murder was white despite the fact that 65 percent of homicide victims are black.
• The Death Penalty in Georgia, USA: Racist, Arbitrary, and Unfair: London: Amnesty International, June 1996. By the end of January 1996, Georgia had carried out 20 executions since 1977, and 103 prisoners remained on death row. This study indicates that in many cases the ethnic origin of the defendant or of the victim they were convicted of murdering was a key factor in the prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty. Backroung on the history of the death penalty in Georgia and U.S. Supreme Court rulings involving the Georgia death penalty are provided, and issues such as inadequate legal representation, accelerating the appeals process, the execution of inmates for crimes committed while juveniles and mentally retarded persons are also addressed. Also available at The Death Penalty in Georgia, USA.
• McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987): The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the claim that death penalty sentencing in Georgia was administered in a racially biased manner in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, despite statistical data on capital sentences in Georgia to which showed that black defendants convicted of killing white victims were more likely to be given the death sentence than other defendants.
• Racism and Capital Punishment: Relevant portions of Wesley Lowe's Pro Death Penalty Page. "Murder has no color, class, or IQ. A murderer is a murderer." Proposes a mandatory death penalty for all capital crimes to ensure its equal application.

Indigent defense

• With Justice for Few: The Growing Crisis in Death Penalty Representation: by Richard C. Dieter. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, October 1995. Discusses the problem in inadequate or incompetent legal defense in capital trials, especially in light of trends to limit the right of death row inmates to challenge the representation they were given at trial.
• Justice on the Cheap: The Philadelphia Story: by Michael Kroll. Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, May 1992. A case study of Philadelphia's inadequate system of providing competent counsel for poor defendants in capital trials.
• ABA Death Penalty Representation Project Launches New Campaign to Recruit Pro Bono Counsel for Death Row Inmates: The Postconviction Death Penalty Representation Project is part of the Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section of the American Bar Association, founded in 1983 with the specific mission of recruiting volunteer counsel to represent indigent death row inmates in postconviction proceedings.

Moratorium on the Death Penalty
Although not necessarily taking a position either in favor or against the death penalty, some organizations have called for a moratorium on the death penalty until inequities in its application can be addressed.

American Bar Association
The ABA opposes capital punishment for juveniles or the mentally retarded, but does not take a position on the death penalty as a whole. It calls for a moratorium on executions until problems regarding its application are addressed.

• Recommendation 107: American Bar Association, 3 February 1997. The American Bar Association calls for a moratorium on capital punishment until severe problems with its application are addressed, specifically regarding the provision of counsel to defendants in capital cases, state post-conviction and federal habeas corpus proceedings, the elimination of racial discrimination in capital sentencing, and preventing the execution of the mentally retarded or persons under 18 at the time of offense. The resolution states also that "in adopting this recommendation, apart from exiting Association policies relating to offenders who are mentally retarded or under the age of 18 at the time of the commission of the offenses, the Association takes no position on the death penalty." This page offers for download a WordPerfect version of the report upon which the recommendation is based.
• "A Report from the Chair: Putting a Hold on the Death Penalty": by Leslie A. Harris. ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, Human Rights 24(1), Winter 1997. The 1996-97 chair of the American Bar Association IR&R Section calls for a moratorium on capital punishment.
• "IR&R and Litigation Section Proposal to the ABA House of Delegates": by Alex J. Hurder. ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, Human Rights 24(1), Winter 1997. A brief summary of the proposal which resulted in Recommendation 107.

Other Calls for a Moratorium
Amnesty International and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions both favor total abolition of the death penalty worldwide, but at the very least call for a moratorium on executions in the U.S. until inequities are addressed.

• Open Letter to the President on the Death Penalty: Letter to President Bill Clinton from Pierre Sané, Secretary General. London: Amnesty International, January 1994. In an open letter to President Bill Clinton, Amnesty International called on the U.S. Government to recognized its responsibility for ensuring equal protection of the law to all U.S. citizens by establishing a presidential commission on the death penalty and to establish a moratorium on executions until the commission reported its findings.
• United Nations investigator calls on United States to halt executions until it can ensure fairness and impartiality in use of capital punishment: Press release, United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, 3 April 1998. HR/98/21. See also the Special Rapporteur's report on his 1997 Mission to the United States of America.

Specific Populations

Women
Of the over 19,000 confirmed executions since 1608 in what is now the United States, only 566, less than three percent, were executions of women (as of June 1994). Ten women have been executed in the U.S. since executions resumed in 1976. The woman pictured to the right, Karla Faye Tucker, was was executed in Texas on 3 February 1998 by lethal injection, the second woman to be executed in the post-Furman era. Per the Death Penalty Information Center, as of September 2004 there were 50 women on the nation's death rows. Women continue to be sentence to death at far lower rates than rates for men, acounting for about 10 percent of all murder arrests, but for only 2 percent of death sentences, 1.3 percent of persons actually on death row, and 1.1 percent (since 1976) of executions. [Updated 24-Mar-2005.]

• Women and the Death Penalty: From the Death Penalty Information Center.
• "Why Women Aren't Executed: Gender Bias and the Death Penalty" by Thad Rueter. ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, Human Rights 23(4), Fall 1996. Examines why women are less likely than men to be sentenced to death for murder and, of those receiving death sentences, are less likely than men to be executed.

Juveniles
Since the execution of Thomas Graunger in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, in 1642, about 346 persons have been executed for crimes committed while they were juveniles. This number represents about 1.8 percent of the 19,000 confirmed executions in what is now the United States since 1608. There are presently 58 inmates, all male, on death row for crimes committed while juveniles. The United States has ratified one treaty that prohibits the execution of persons who were under 18 years old at the time of their offense, but reserved the right to execute juveniles within the constraints of U.S. law. The U.S. has signed, but not ratified, two other such treaties. See International: Conventions & Covenants Prohibiting Capital Punishment for Offenses Committed by Persons Under the Age of 18 for further information.

• Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988): The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that youths younger than 16 years old at the time of their offense cannot be constitutionally executed.
• Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989): The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the court's opinion that it was not unconstitutional to execute youths at least 16 years old at the time of committing a capital offense.
• Executions of Juvenile Offenders: General facts on juveniles who have been executed, with details about the 9 offenders executed for crimes committed while they were juveniles since 1973.
• Minimum Death Penalty Ages by American Jurisdiction: Information based on "The Juvenile Death Pnealty Today: Present Death Row Inmates under Juvenile death Sentences and Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes, January 1, 1973 to June 30, 1997" by Victor L. Streib, 18 August 1997; made available by the Death Penalty Information Center. Information on the legal context and listing of minimum ages provided by state statute in death penalty states.
• Juveniles and the Death Penalty: Executions Worldwide Since 1985: Information from Amnesty International USA. The USA accounts for the majority of documented cases of persons executed for offenses committed when they were under 18. Details of the nine documented U.S. cases since 1985 are presented, as well as information about international protocols and treaties related to imposition of the death penalty on juveniles.

Mentally retarded persons
As of yearend 1997, 31 mentally retarded men had been executed in the U.S. since 1976. Eleven death penalty states forbid execution of the mentally retarded: Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, New Mexico, New York (except when a prisoner commits murder), Tennessee, and Washington. The federal government also prohibits the execution of mentally retarded persons for federal capital crimes.

• Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989): The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is not categorically unconstitutional to execute a mentally retarded person found guilty of capital murder.
• Defendants with Mental Retardation Executed in the United States Since the Death Penalty was Reinstated in 1976: by Dennis Keys, William Edwards, and Robert Perske; updated by the Death Penalty Information Center. Gives the name, race, measured I.Q., state of execution, and date of execution for the 31 mentally retarded men executed in the U.S. since 1976.

Insane persons

• Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986): Held that is is unconstitutional to execute a person who is insane.
• "No Death Penalty for Persons with Severe Mental Illness": by Laurie M. Flynn. National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, 15 January 1998. Opposes the death penalty for persons with mental illnesses, such as was sought in the Unabomber case before Thedore Kaczynski's plea agreement. (Kaczynski pled guilty in exchange for a life sentence.)

Minorities
See above, Racial Disparities.

Poor people
See above, Indigent Defense.

Cruel & Unusual Punishment
Despite U.S. Supreme Court rulings to the contrary, many death penalty opponents consider capital punishment in and of itself to constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, believing that "evolving standards of decency" (a concept recognized in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958)) have shown the death penalty to be a barbarous practice that should be discarded. Specific methods of execution also frequently come under attack as violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Death penalty advocates counter that the framers of the Constitution took capital punishment for granted, and did not consider it cruel and unusual. Some proponents of the death penalty believe some methods of execution, such as lethal injection, are more humane than others. (See also Death Row: Methods of Execution.)

General Information

• The Cruel and Unusual Punishment Conundrum: Excerpt from A Monitor: Methods of Execution & Execution Protocols (Committee on Criminal Justice, Florida Senate, September 1997) discussing the history in British common law and U.S. constitutional law of the concept of cruel and unusual punishment as it pertains to capital punishment and specific methods of execution.

Relevant Statutory & Case Law

• U.S. Constitution: Eighth Amendment: Includes annotations on a number of constitutional issues affected by this article of the Bill of Rights, including those related to capital punishment.
• Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1878): The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the firing squad was a constitutional method of execution.
• In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436 (1890): Holding that the Eighth Amendment did not apply to the states, the U.S. Supreme Court nevertheless compared electrocution to other methods of execution and attempted to define cruel and unusual methods of execution, writing that such punishments "involve torture or a lingering death, but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution."
• Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947): The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana could constitutionally subject Willie Francis to the electric chair again after the first attempt at executing him failed.
• Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958): The majority of the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider "the death penalty as an index of the constitutional limit on punishment. Whatever the arguments may be against capital punishment...the death penalty has been employed throughout our history, and, in a day when it is still widely accepted, it cannot be said to violate the constitutional concept of cruelty." The Court held the meaning of the words cruel and unusual punishment draw their meaning "from the evolving standards of decency that mark the process of a maturing society." However, the Court has never used the "evolving standards" test in any case involving methods of execution.
• Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 153 (1972): The U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal and state capital punishment laws then existing, characterizing them as "arbitrary and capricious" and in volation of cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, the majority of the high court did not find that capital punishment in and of itself constituted cruel and unusual punishment, and reinstated capital punishment in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976) four years later.

"Capital punishment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment."

• Capital Punishment is Barbarous: Hugo Adam Bedeau, in his The Case Against the Death Penalty, describes the five methods of execution currently used in the U.S. -- hanging, firing squad, the electric chair, lethal gas, and lethal injection -- and condemns them as barbarous and cruel.
• "Post-Furman Botched Executions": by Michael L. Radelet. 10 May 1995. Presents 19 case histories of difficult executions botched because of problematic procedures or the technology of execution. A later version of this documente presenting 23 cases updated by the Death Penalty Information Center is also available on the Internet.
• "Let's Get Real About Executions in America: Three Easy Steps" by James Carroll. The Boston Globe (op-ed piece.), May 31, 1994. An anti-death penalty opinion piece focusing on methods of execution and the presumed "humane" alternative of lethal injection.
• Cruel and unusual punishment | Moral argument | Violates human dignity/rights: Arguments that the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that it is barbarous, and that it violates human rights; presented by anti-death penalty members of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death?.

"Capital punishment is not cruel and unusual punishment and is constitutionally allowed."

• The Constitutionality of Capital Punishment: Relevant portions of Wesley Lowe's Pro Death Penalty Page arguing that the death penalty was taken for granted by the framers of the Constitution, despite claims of death penalty opponents that capital punishment constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
• More humane than life imprisonment: Argues that life imprisonment is a less humane alternative than execution; presented by a pro-death penalty member of a University of Texas student debate on Capital Punishment: Life or Death?.