The United States is the only English-speaking Western democracy that still uses the death penalty to punish convicted killers. More than 30 states allow the use of the death penalty. Since 1976, the year the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a four-year moratorium, more than 1,200 prisoners have been put to death. Texas, by far the leader in executions since 1976, had executed 482 prisoners as of June 2012, while the next-highest state, Virginia, has executed 109.
Question 1: What does moratorium mean?
Question 2: About how many prisoners in the United States have been executed since the end of the moratorium?
Capital punishment has been a part of the United States' criminal justice system for most of the country's history. Indeed, until the early 20th century, death sentences were often carried out in public places such as parks and town squares. Those public executions drew hundreds and occasionally thousands of people to witness the deaths—usually by hanging—of prisoners convicted of particularly sensational crimes.
The last such public execution in the United States occurred in 1936 in Owensboro, Kentucky, when Rainey Bethea was hanged for the rape and murder of a 70-year-old woman. An estimated 20,000 people, including a sizeable media contingent from around the country, journeyed to Bethea's execution site just after sunrise on an August morning. The negative media coverage surrounding the event—reporters at the time characterized it as a grotesque "carnival"—eventually turned popular opinion against public executions, historians say. Executions are now limited to only a few witnesses, including family members of the executed prisoner as well as those of his or her victims.
Question 3: Why do you think executions used to be so public? Do you think that public executions were a good way to deter crime?
The number of executions as a whole began to decline sharply in the United States beginning in the early 1950s. In a growing number of states, juries became increasingly reluctant to sentence prisoners to death, perhaps due to concerns over the death penalty's constitutionality. Indeed, anti–death penalty scholars and activists argued that a death sentence violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusualpunishment. With the death penalty under heightened legal scrutiny, the United States' execution rate continued to dwindle each year. In 1968, for the first time in U.S. history, no prisoners were executed. The years 1969 through 1972 were similarly execution-free.
Question 4: Why did the number of executions begin to decrease?
In early 1972, the Supreme Court began to hear arguments in the case Furman v. Georgia, in which lawyers for the convicted murderer William Henry Furman argued that he did not deserve the death sentence handed down to him by a Georgia jury. Furman had accidentally killed the resident of a house he was burglarizing; the resident had returned home during Furman's robbery. While attempting to flee, Furman tripped, causing his gun to discharge and kill the resident.
The decision came at the end of the Supreme Court's term, almost exactly forty years ago. By a 5–4 majority, the Court ruled not only that Furman's death sentence was unfair, but also that the death penalty itself was unconstitutional, violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The arbitrary nature of death sentences, the Supreme Court declared, violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which entitles all U.S. citizens to "equal protection of the laws." In his concurring opinion, Associate Justice Potter Stewart wrote that the death penalty is "unique…in its absolute renunciation of all that is embodied in our concept of humanity." He continued:
These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual…. I simply conclude that the Eighth and 14th Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this unique penalty to be so wantonly and so freakishly imposed.
Question 5: What did the Supreme Court decide in Furman v. Georgia? What was the reasoning for their decision?
Question 6: What was Justice Stewart's argument against the death penalty? What metaphor did he use to explain his position?
The decision in Furman v. Georgia essentially overruled any state laws that allowed the death penalty.Capital punishment remained illegal until 1976, when the Supreme Court voted, 7-2, to reinstate it, in the case Gregg v. Georgia. In its majority opinion, written by Stewart, the Court cited capital punishment's effectiveness as a crime deterrent. It also cited numerous new state laws that made the imposition of death sentences less arbitrary, and therefore less "cruel and unusual" in the eyes of the Court.
After Gregg, many states chose to restore their death penalty laws. In 1977, Utah put convicted killer Gary Gilmore in front of a firing squad, making him the first person executed in the United States since 1967. Some states, however, did not institute the death penalty. Michigan, for example, continued to uphold its 130-year-old ban on capital punishment.
Question 7: What were the Supreme Court's reasons for restoring the constitutionality of the death penalty?
Question 1: What does moratorium mean?
Question 2: About how many prisoners in the United States have been executed since the end of the moratorium?
Capital punishment has been a part of the United States' criminal justice system for most of the country's history. Indeed, until the early 20th century, death sentences were often carried out in public places such as parks and town squares. Those public executions drew hundreds and occasionally thousands of people to witness the deaths—usually by hanging—of prisoners convicted of particularly sensational crimes.
The last such public execution in the United States occurred in 1936 in Owensboro, Kentucky, when Rainey Bethea was hanged for the rape and murder of a 70-year-old woman. An estimated 20,000 people, including a sizeable media contingent from around the country, journeyed to Bethea's execution site just after sunrise on an August morning. The negative media coverage surrounding the event—reporters at the time characterized it as a grotesque "carnival"—eventually turned popular opinion against public executions, historians say. Executions are now limited to only a few witnesses, including family members of the executed prisoner as well as those of his or her victims.
Question 3: Why do you think executions used to be so public? Do you think that public executions were a good way to deter crime?
The number of executions as a whole began to decline sharply in the United States beginning in the early 1950s. In a growing number of states, juries became increasingly reluctant to sentence prisoners to death, perhaps due to concerns over the death penalty's constitutionality. Indeed, anti–death penalty scholars and activists argued that a death sentence violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusualpunishment. With the death penalty under heightened legal scrutiny, the United States' execution rate continued to dwindle each year. In 1968, for the first time in U.S. history, no prisoners were executed. The years 1969 through 1972 were similarly execution-free.
Question 4: Why did the number of executions begin to decrease?
In early 1972, the Supreme Court began to hear arguments in the case Furman v. Georgia, in which lawyers for the convicted murderer William Henry Furman argued that he did not deserve the death sentence handed down to him by a Georgia jury. Furman had accidentally killed the resident of a house he was burglarizing; the resident had returned home during Furman's robbery. While attempting to flee, Furman tripped, causing his gun to discharge and kill the resident.
The decision came at the end of the Supreme Court's term, almost exactly forty years ago. By a 5–4 majority, the Court ruled not only that Furman's death sentence was unfair, but also that the death penalty itself was unconstitutional, violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The arbitrary nature of death sentences, the Supreme Court declared, violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which entitles all U.S. citizens to "equal protection of the laws." In his concurring opinion, Associate Justice Potter Stewart wrote that the death penalty is "unique…in its absolute renunciation of all that is embodied in our concept of humanity." He continued:
These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual…. I simply conclude that the Eighth and 14th Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this unique penalty to be so wantonly and so freakishly imposed.
Question 5: What did the Supreme Court decide in Furman v. Georgia? What was the reasoning for their decision?
Question 6: What was Justice Stewart's argument against the death penalty? What metaphor did he use to explain his position?
The decision in Furman v. Georgia essentially overruled any state laws that allowed the death penalty.Capital punishment remained illegal until 1976, when the Supreme Court voted, 7-2, to reinstate it, in the case Gregg v. Georgia. In its majority opinion, written by Stewart, the Court cited capital punishment's effectiveness as a crime deterrent. It also cited numerous new state laws that made the imposition of death sentences less arbitrary, and therefore less "cruel and unusual" in the eyes of the Court.
After Gregg, many states chose to restore their death penalty laws. In 1977, Utah put convicted killer Gary Gilmore in front of a firing squad, making him the first person executed in the United States since 1967. Some states, however, did not institute the death penalty. Michigan, for example, continued to uphold its 130-year-old ban on capital punishment.
Question 7: What were the Supreme Court's reasons for restoring the constitutionality of the death penalty?
"Capital Punishment." Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 25 June 2012. Web. 4 Nov. 2013. <http://www.2facts.com/article/i1700220>.