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This Article Talks About the Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, it is the state’s decision killing of a person as punishment for a crime. The sentence ordering that someone is punished with the death penalty is called a death sentence ,also the state has different choices of execution methods some use hanging Electrocution or lethal injection.Even though they had different options to choose the departmant of justice changed the rules in 1993 that the execution should be by the lethal injection. They changed some protocols about how the execution should go. They also talk about the  Prisoners final meal and final statement.

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Page 22

The lawful infliction of death as a punishment; the death penalty.

D.C. Circuit Upholds Federal Execution Protocol

In 1994, Congress enacted the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA), which requires federal executions to be implemented "in the manner prescribed by the law of the State in which the sentence is imposed." This provision requires the federal government to adhere to a state's choice of execution methods such as hanging, electrocution, or lethal injection. In 2019, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) amended its main execution protocol to make the drug pentobarbital the sole lethal injection substance to be used in federal executions. Four federal death row inmates challenged the change in protocol, arguing that it violated the FDPA by not following the execution methods of the states they were sentenced in. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in In re: Federal Bureau of Prisons' Execution Protocol Cases, 955 F.3d 106 (D.C.Cir. 2020), upheld the legality of the revised protocol, though the two judges in the majority disagreed on the legal reasoning behind the decision.

In the history of the United States, Congress has addressed the "manner" of executions for federal capital offenses only three times. In the Crimes Act of 1790, the First Congress specified that "the manner of inflicting the punishment of death, shall be by hanging the person convicted by the neck until dead." In 1937, Congress changed its mind, stating that "[t]he manner of inflicting Page 23 the punishment of death shall be the manner prescribed by the laws of the States within which the sentence is imposed." Congress repealed this provision in 1984. Federal law still authorized the death penalty, but there was no federal law specifying how it would be carried out. The D EPARTMENT OF J USTICE promulgated a rule in 1993 that stated the method of execution of a federal death sentence must be by lethal injection. However, with the enactment of the FDPA the following year, Congress inserted language similar to the 1937 law, making the "manner" of implementing federal death sentence the law of the state in which the sentence was imposed.

Since 2001, the Department of Justice has developed protocols that describe in precise detail the way a federal execution must be carried out. This 50-page document discusses witnesses for the execution, the prisoner's final meal and final statement, the injection of the lethal substances, and many other details. The document was updated in 2008 to include the BOP's use of three substances for execution, one of which was sodium thiopental. However, by 2011 this drug could not be obtained because anti-death penalty advocates pressured pharmaceutical companies to refuse to supply the drug for executions. The bureau explored alternative drugs for lethal injections before recommending the use of a single barbiturate-pentobarbital-to carry out federal executions. The attorney general approved this revision to the protocol and the bureau adopted it in July 2019.

Four death row inmates immediately challenged the revised federal execution protocol, claiming the change violated the FDPA by not following state protocols on the manner of execution. The federal district court agreed and issued a preliminary injunction barring the execution of the inmates. The court reasoned that the 2019 protocol exceeded statutory authority by creating a "single implementation procedure" that was not authorized by the FDPA. The court interpreted FDPA's "in the manner prescribed" by state law to include both the execution method and "additional procedural details" such as precise instructions for "how the intravenous catheter is to be inserted." The government filed an appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court reversed the district court ruling and dissolved the PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION. Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao agreed that the 2019 protocol did not violate the FDPA provision, but they came to that decision on different grounds. Judge Katsas concluded that the main question on appeal was what constitutes a "manner" of execution within the meaning of the FDPA. He agreed with the government that in this case, "manner" meant "method," "such that the FDPA regulates only the top-line choice among execution methods such as hanging, electrocution, or lethal injection." The FDPA's text, structure, and history revealed that "manner" referred only to the method of execution. The Crimes Act of 1790 used the word "manner," but by making hanging the sole means of execution, it really meant "method." Moreover, for 140 years Congress did not include specific "subsidiary details such as the length of the rope, how it would be fastened around the neck, or the training of the hangman."

Judge Katsas found that the 1937 act did not change this understanding about the "manner" of executing CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Though Congress changed the governing rule-"The manner prescribed by the laws of the State within which the sentence is imposed"-it retained the understanding that "manner" was synonymous with "method." The FDPA carried forward the relevant language from the 1937 act.

Judge Neomi Rao read the FDPA provision differently. In her view, the FDPA required the federal government to apply state law-statutes and formal regulations-"at whatever level of generality state law might be framed. This meant that state protocols were not law and therefore not binding on federal executions. Where state law is silent, the federal government has discretion to choose whatever lawful execution procedures it prefers." Therefore, the 2019 protocol was Page 24 consistent with the FDPA. The protocol sets out a "non-binding procedural framework that the federal government may apply in most cases," and it allows the departure from federal procedures when the 2019 protocol conflicts with state law.

Judge David Tatel filed a dissenting opinion. He disagreed with Judge Katsas on the meaning of the word "manner" in the FDPA provision. The word "manner" referred to "more than general execution methods." It required federal executions to be carried out using the same procedures that states use to execute their own prisoners, including laws, regulations, and protocols issued by state prison officials pursuant to state law. Because the federal protocol "takes no account of these procedures, it is contrary" to the FDPA provision.

Kahler v. Kansas

The N INTH A MENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution reserves to the states the right to establish laws not in conflict with the Constitution or other federal law. Accordingly, many states have differing laws, for example, addressing the legal age for the consumption of alcoholic beverages, or the amount of marijuana one may legally possess (if at all), or whether one may vaccinate his/her own pet dog or cat without the services of a licensed veterinarian. State laws also vary on SELF-DEFENSE rights, including whether one may use lethal force to defend against imminent bodily harm or intrusion of a home or residence (including socalled Stand Your Ground laws or those invoking the "castle doctrine"). So also do some states have differing criteria for permitting a defense of legal insanity when charged with the commission of a serious crime.

In Clark v. Arizona, 548 U.S. 735, 126 S.Ct. 2709, 165 L. Ed. 2d 842 (2006), the U.S. Supreme Court summarized and reviewed state "insanity" defenses that might be employed to absolve criminal culpability. The Court concluded there were four main "strains variously combined to yield a diversity of American standards." Two were dominant among state laws: the "cognitive capacity" test, which focuses on whether a mental illness has left a DEFENDANT "unable to understand what he [was] doing" when he committed a crime; and the "moral capacity" test, which asks whether a mental illness renders a defendant "unable to understand that his action [was] wrong." (The other two consider "volitional incapacity" and/or "product-of-mental-illness" criteria but are not relevant to the present case.)

The state of Kansas allows a defendant to show that mental illness resulted in his lack of the requisite mens rea (intent) to commit a crime. The state also allows a convicted defendant to raise mental illness in a petition for a reduced term of imprisonment, or alternatively, for commitment to a mental health facility. Notwithstanding, Kansas (unlike many states) does not fully exonerate a defendant who argues that his illness prevented him from recognizing that his criminal act was morally wrong.

In Kahler v. Kansas, 140 S.Ct. 1021, 206 L. Ed. 2d 312 (2020), the Supreme Court, addressing a constitutional due process challenge, held that Kansas was not required to adopt an insanity test that considered whether a defendant had the ability to recognize that his crime was morally wrong. In so holding, the Court affirmed the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court.

A heinous crime resulted in a defense effort to challenge existing Kansas law. In early 2009, the wife of defendant James Kahler filed for DIVORCE, taking their two teenage daughters and younger son with her. On Thanksgiving, a distraught Kahler drove to the home of his wife's grandmother, where he knew they were staying. Entering unannounced through a back door, he shot his wife twice while allowing his son to flee. He then shot the grandmother and each of his daughters. All four died. He was charged with capital MURDER.

Prior to trial, defense counsel filed a motion challenging Kansas's treatment of insanity claims as violating the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. (The F OURTEENTH A MENDMENT makes applicable to states the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment.) The motion argued that Kansas had "unconstitutionally abolished the insanity defense" by allowing defendants who "cannot tell the difference between right and wrong" to be convicted.

After failing on that motion, defense counsel attempted at trial to show, through psychiatric EXPERT TESTIMONY, that severe depression had prevented Kahler from forming the necessary intent to commit murder. The jury convicted him. The trial court also permitted Kahler to offer additional evidence at the sentencing phase to mitigate his sentence. The jury nonetheless imposed the death penalty.

Kahler then appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, which relied on earlier precedent to reject his challenge, concluding that due process Page 25 did not mandate that a state adopt a particular insanity test. Kahler then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to address the same issue, that is, whether the Due Process Clause required states to provide an insanity defense for defendants who could not "distinguish right from wrong" when committing such crimes.

The Supreme Court, by a 6-3 margin, affirmed the conclusion of the Kansas high court. Justice E LENA K AGAN delivered the Court's opinion, joined by Chief Justice J OHN R OBERTS and Justices S AMUEL A LITO, N EIL G ORSUCH, B RETT K AVANAUGH, and C LARENCE T HOMAS. The Court, quoting precedent, noted that a state rule involving criminal liability "violates due process only if it offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience [of] our people as to be ranked as fundamental." Leland v. Oregon, 343 U.S. 790, 798. The Court further noted that the due process standard sets a high bar, making unlikely a single rule of criminal liability applicable in all states. Complex and ever-evolving ideas and understanding of mental illness are best left to the states to dissect, evaluate, and act upon, especially when considering the theories and parameters of mental illness. Finally, the Court noted that it had twice previously declined to "constitutionalize" any particular version of an INSANITY DEFENSE, instead concluding that any state's adopted insanity rule was substantially open to its own (state) choice.

The Court acknowledged that for hundreds of years, jurists and judges have recognized that insanity may mitigate or relieve criminal liability. Indeed, Kansas offers two specific defenses (above) that may serve to achieve such results. But Kahler argued that due process requires the ADOPTION of a specific test for insanity, namely, the moral incapacity test. The Court rejected this, noting that in Clark, it had recognized a "tapestry" of state approaches showing that no single version of insanity defense had become so ingrained in American law as to hold it as "fundamental" under due process analysis.

In sum, the Court's majority held that "[d]efining the precise relationship between criminal culpability and mental illness involves examining the workings of the brain, the purposes of the criminal law, and the ideas of free will and responsibility," requiring consideration of hard choices among values. Such a project should be open to evolving revision as new medical knowledge warrants. As such, concluded the Court, it is a project for state governance, not constitutional law.

Justice S TEPHEN B REYER provided a lengthy DISSENT, in which he was joined by Justices R UTH B ADER G INSBURG and S ONIA S OTOMAYOR. He agreed that the Constitution gives states broad leeway to define crimes and criminal procedures, which include different definitions and standards relating to insanity defenses. However, he opined that Kansas has essentially eliminated a core defense that had existed for centuries: the lack of mental capacity, due to mental illness, needed to consider whether the contemplated conduct was "morally blameworthy." The dissent provided an appendix identifying the varying definitions and standards used by each state.

Ninth Circuit Rules Arizona Can Withhold Information in Lethal Injection Drugs

The introduction of lethal injunctions to carry out CAPITAL PUNISHMENT has led to numerous lawsuits by death row inmates, who have contested this method as cruel and unusual punishment. Various drugs, either solely or in combination, have been used to execute prisoners, with instances of slow and painful death. Some states have been reluctant to disclose which drugs they use. In First Amendment Coalition v. Ryan, 938 F.3d 1069 (9th Cir. 2019), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Arizona did not have to disclose detailed information on the drugs to be used for executions, rejecting the argument that failure to disclose deprives inmates of their F IRST A MENDMENT rights.

In 2014, six death row inmates filed a federal CIVIL RIGHTS action in Arizona federal district court. They asserted that they had a First Amendment right to detailed information about the drugs to be used in their executions and the qualifications of execution team members. The Ninth Circuit granted Joseph Wood, one of the original plaintiffs, a stay of execution until the case was litigated. However, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the stay and Wood was executed the day after the stay was vacated. The execution was botched. Wood rose up and gasped for air 12 minutes into his execution, after first appearing to be sedated. He struggled nearly two hours after the drugs were first administered. During that time, Wood was administered 15 doses of lethal-injection drugs, even though Arizona's protocol called for only two. Journalists who observed the execution stated that Wood appeared to be in agony throughout the process.

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After Wood's execution, the First Amendment Coalition joined the inmates in filing an amended complaint. The plaintiffs made three claims. The first: Arizona unconstitutionally restricted the ability of execution witnesses to hear the sounds of the entire execution process. Under Arizona's procedures, witnesses observe the execution room through an adjacent room. The room has windows looking into the execution room but curtains cover them during the preliminary stages of the execution. Witnesses view the prisoner through closed-circuit monitors as he is secured on the table, makes his last statement, and has intravenous lines inserted. During these stages, witnesses can listen to the sounds in the execution room through speakers connected to an overhead microphone. After the intravenous lines are inserted, the execution team turns off the closed-circuit monitors and opens the curtains. At that point, the microphone is turned off, other than for brief moments when execution team members give updates on the level of the prisoner's level of consciousness. The district court ruled that the lack of sound did not violate the First Amendment's right to access government proceedings. Based on Ninth Circuit precedent, the court concluded that there was only the right to view executions, not the right to hear executions.

Second, the plaintiffs claimed that Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) officials had violated their First Amendment rights by failing to disclose information regarding the source and quality of lethal-injection drugs to be used in their executions. The plaintiffs requested information regarding the manufacturers, sellers, lot numbers, National Drug Codes, and expiration dates of drugs. The district court rejected this claim as well, finding that they were not entitled to this information under the First Amendment's right of access to the courts.

Third, the plaintiffs claimed that ADC officials violated the First Amendment by failing to disclose the qualifications of each execution team member who would be inserting intravenous lines into the prisoners. Arizona required such individuals to be "currently certified or licensed within the United States" to place intravenous lines. The plaintiffs contended they needed more specific information regarding each team member's qualifications because under current procedures, an amateur with an online certificate would be authorized to perform the procedure. Again, the district court concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to plausibly allege a historical tradition or the functional importance of access to the information, as required by the First Amendment's right of access to governmental proceedings.

The plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit. The court, in a 2-1 decision, upheld the district court's dismissal of the drug and execution team information, but reversed the right to access sound during the execution process. Judge Paul Watford, writing for the majority, ruled that Arizona's restrictions on press and public access to sounds of executions impermissibly burdened the First Amendment right of access to governmental proceedings. The public viewing of public executions "in their entirety is rooted in historical tradition and that public observation plays a significant role in the functioning of capital punishment." This historical tradition of public access included "the ability to hear the sounds of executions." Judge Watford rejected the state's contention this tradition did not apply to sounds broadcast from the execution. Arizona made the decision to have witnesses view the events through a soundproof window. Having the microphone left on during the entire execution process ensured "informed and accurate media coverage of the event, which in turn will help the public determine whether executions in Arizona are being carried out in a humane and lawful manner."

Judge Watford agreed with the district court that Arizona did not have to reveal detailed information on the drugs used for lethal injections to the public or the press. The First Amendment right of access to governmental proceedings referred "to the right of the public to attend and observe these proceedings." The Supreme Court has held that the public has a right of access to transcripts of criminal proceedings, but the drug information "bears no resemblance to a transcript." There was no need for a transcript in this context, "since the public already has the right to attend and observe executions." The requested drug information was "not part of any official record of the execution proceeding. It is simply information in the government's possession that would enhance the understanding of executions." Judge Watford acknowledged "Arizona's checkered past with executions," and agreed drug information would help monitor the constitutionality of Arizona's execution proceedings, but the First Amendment did not give the inmates or the First Amendment Coalition the right to obtain this information.

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The court applied the same reasoning to the request for detailed information on members of the execution team.

Judge Marsha Berzon concurred with the decision to allow sound during the entire execution proceedings, but dissented as to the other two conclusions. She expressed her concern that Arizona had exercised its discretion too broadly during the execution proceedings, changing drugs at the last minute, obtaining lethal injections illegally or administering them in unauthorized dosages. She concluded that the plaintiffs had a First Amendment right of access to the courts because "Arizona has concealed information in a deliberate effort to limit their ability to litigate the conditions under which they will be put to death." This "active interference" triggered the First Amendment right.

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Page 22 The lawful infliction of death as a punishment; the death penalty. In 1994, Congress enacted the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA), which requires federal executions to be implemented "in the manner prescribed by the law of the State in which the sentence is imposed."

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This Article talks about How New Hampshire Abolished the death penalty .New Hampshire has only executed 24 people.They say how “There are some murders that are so brutal and heinous that the death penalty is the only appropriate penalty “ I understand that but there be sometimes when theres people wrongfully accused of committing something they havent and they get the death penalty and later on they find out the whole time the person was innocent.

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When New Hampshire abolished the death penalty on Thursday, the reaction to the news-at least nationally-was rather muted. Here was a New England state, after all, whose machinery of death had rusted long ago. "This debate has been largely symbolic, because New Hampshire has neither an active death penalty system nor any executions on the horizon," The Washington Post reported. "The state has only one person on death row ... and last carried out an execution in 1939" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/new-hampshire-will-abandon-death-penalty-after-lawmakers-override-governor/2019/05/30/d0bdec8e-824c-11e9-bce7-40b4105f7ca0_story.html).

It is true that New Hampshire never had much use for capital punishment. Since its first use in 1734, New Hampshire has executed only 24 people. But there is greater significance here than it seems. For starters, New Hampshire joins a growing trend. Now, since 2007, seven states have abolished capital punishment by legislative action, and three by judicial decree. (Nebraska abolished it legislatively, but voters subsequently reinstated it in a referendum.) Four other states have a moratorium in place preventing anyone from being executed. This period has been one of the most successful in the modern history of death penalty abolitionism.

And the politics of New Hampshire are not those of, say, Massachusetts. The state-whose official motto, emblazoned on license plates, is "Live Free or Die"-was a Republican stronghold until the early 1990s, and retains a libertarian streak. While the state Senate and House are both controlled by Democrats, they needed votes from across the aisle to reach the two-thirds threshold to override Republican Governor Chris Sununu.

There are thus important lessons from New Hampshire about how abolitionists can be successful across the country-namely, by shifting the grounds of the debate so as not to be painted as soft on crime or out of touch with mainstream American values.

Their success has its roots in a decades-long struggle. In 2000, both houses of the New Hampshire legislature voted to end the death penalty, only to have Democratic Governor Jeanne Shaheen veto the bill; the legislature failed to override her. Shaheen explained her decision by saying, "There are some murders that are so brutal and heinous that the death penalty is the only appropriate penalty."

This appeal to an eye for an eye kind of justice has long provided the fuel to propel support for the death penalty. Four years after Shaheen's veto, Republican Governor Craig Benson made a similar argument in explaining his veto of legislation that would have raised the minimum age to execute someone from 17 to 18. "When somebody, regardless of their age, is bold enough to take the life of a police officer, there should be no exceptions-we should make sure that they should pay the ultimate price," he said. Earlier this month, Sununu defended capital punishment as "common sense," adding that the repeal bill was an "injusticeto law enforcement and other victims of violent crime across the state." (Michael Addison, the only man in death row in the state, was sentenced to death for killing a Manchester police officer.)

Similar arguments frequently are heard at the national level. In explaining the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the 1994 case Callins v. Collins, Justice Antonin Scalia famously argued that abolitionists-including Justice Harry Blackmun, whose dissent from the Court's decision is equally famous-underplay the gravity and heinousness of the crimes for which the death penalty is an appropriate punishment (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-7054.ZA.html).

"Justice Blackmun begins his statement by describing with poignancy the death of a convicted murderer by lethal injection," Scalia wrote. "He chooses, as the case in which to make that statement, one of the less brutal of the murders that regularly come before us-the murder of a man ripped by a bullet suddenly and unexpectedly, with no opportunity to prepare himself and his affairs, and left to bleed to death on the floor of a tavern. The death by injection which Justice Blackmun describes looks pretty desirable next to that."

Other justices have shown little patience for the extended period of appeal that follows a capital sentence. Earlier this year, Neil Gorsuch, Scalia's successor on the Court, noted that "both the State and the victims of crime have an important interest in the timely enforcement of a (death) sentence."

Traditionally, opponents of the death penalty have responded to such arguments by claiming that even the most heinous criminals are entitled to be treated with dignity or that there is nothing that anyone can do to forfeit their "right to have rights" (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/408/238). Each of these arguments rejects the simple and appealing rationale for capital punishment: retribution. But in doing so, it puts opponents of the death penalty on the side of society's most despised and notorious criminals, of cop killers and of child murderers. It is not surprising, then, that such arguments, while popular in philosophical and political commentary, have never carried the day in the debate about capital punishment in the United States.

New Hampshire abolitionists avoided this pitfall, changing the argument in ways that can and do appeal to a broader range of citizens (https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/70489/OSLJ_V63N1_0343.pdf). They allied themselves with the plight of the families of murder victims. "I am grateful to the many survivors of murder victims who bravely shared their stories with the Legislature this session, many of whom told us that the death penalty, with its requisite long legal process, only prolongs the pain and trauma of their loss," said Democratic Senator Martha Hennessey in explaining her vote to override the veto.

They also avoided the soft-on-crime label by noting that the death penalty does not make citizens safer and that it is "archaic, costly, discriminatory and violent." And they enlisted conservative allies. As one New Hampshire abolitionist said, "more conservatives than ever know the death penalty is a failed government program that does not value life, threatens innocent people, and wastes money."

The campaign to abolish capital punishment succeeded in New Hampshire, just as it has succeeded elsewhere, because abolitionists resisted the temptation to engage with the red meat arguments of many death penalty supporters. They appealed to American values of fairness, equal treatment, and pragmatism. In so doing, they formed a coalition of legislators, political leaders, and citizens who shared the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun's view that it is time to "stop tinkering with the machinery of death" (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-7054.ZA1.html).

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How to Convince Americans to Abolish the Death Penalty

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When New Hampshire abolished the death penalty on Thursday, the reaction to the news-at least nationally-was rather muted. Here was a New England state, after all, whose machinery of death had rusted long ago. "This debate has been largely symbolic, because New Hampshire has neither an active death penalty system nor any executions on the horizon," The Washington Post reported.

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Without the death penalty, Durkin believes, there is no adequate punishment for the most vicious criminals. "A lot of these other arguments will not matter when someone is faced with the murder of a loved one."They think that Without the death penalty there is no adequate punishment for the most vicious criminals.

Rebuttal: I Feel as that’s not true they can give them life sentence and put them in solitary for the rest of their life’s , sometimes they give someone the death penalty just to find out they were innocent after once someone is dead , they’re dead there’s no coming back , you can’t return them back to their families

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The question of whether capital punishment is an acceptable way to administer justice has long perplexed the nation's lawmakers and divided its citizens.

Traditional arguments pit those who believe the death penalty has no place in a civilized society against supporters who see it as an appropriate deterrent and punishment for the most heinous crimes.

Capital punishment's unstable history demonstrates how contentious the debate has been. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court suspended the death penalty on the grounds it violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The decision voided existing statutes in 40 states. Then in 1976, the court reauthorized capital punishment, enabling states to reenact their death penalty statutes. Thirty-seven did, but three of those-Illinois, New Jersey and New Mexico-have abolished their laws since 2007. With those changes, 16 states currently do not use capital punishment.

Although the debate continues to be rooted in philosophical arguments, the recent legislative action abolishing the death penalty has been spurred by practical concerns.

New Jersey abolished its death penalty in 2007 in large part because the state had spent $254 million over 21 years administering it without executing a single person.

"It makes more sense fiscally to have inmates be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole than to have them sit on death row and to go through the appeals process," says Senator Christopher "Kip" Bateman, the bill's sponsor. "New Jersey is going through tough times financially and any decision that is ethical in nature and promotes fiscal responsibility is a win-win for the state."

New Mexico lawmakers followed in 2009, ending capital punishment over similar cost concerns.

Many state-initiated analyses ... have found administering capital punishment is significantly more expensive than housing prisoners for life without parole.

"There is no more inefficient law on the books than the death penalty," says Representative Antonio "Moe" Maestas, co-sponsor of the bill to repeal it. "It sounds very callous and shallow to talk about cost, but we spend other people's money, and we have to consider scarce resources."

Maestas believes his perspective is particularly persuasive because it's rooted in pragmatism rather than personal idealism. "The bottom line is, I don't care if the most heinous criminals die. They should. But capital punishment is very expensive for our state, and we have to find the best use of taxpayer dollars and prosecutorial resources. How many other murders and violent crimes cases could be prosecuted with the resources from one death penalty case?"

A Punishment Worth Preserving

Many state-initiated analyses-including reports from Michigan, New Mexico and South Dakota-have found administering capital punishment is significantly more expensive than housing prisoners for life without parole.

A study released last month [June 2011] found California has spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment since 1978, executing 13 criminals. That's about $184 million more a year than life sentences would have cost.

Much of the cost results from litigating numerous appeals during the convict's time on death row, where the average inmate spends 13 years prior to execution.

This lengthy process also influenced Bateman's decision to sponsor an abolishment bill. "I spoke to many families who went through trying emotional times during the appeals for death row inmates," he says. "Transferring an inmate from death row to life without parole allows for the aggrieved families to have a sense of calmness in their life without having to relive the tragic events over and over again."

Many believe, however, the punishment is worth preserving even though it is expensive, if it can be made more manageable.

Illinois suspended capital punishment for 11 years before abolishing it in March 2011. When former Governor George Ryan instituted the moratorium, his intent was to give Illinois time to study and improve its capital punishment procedures.

Without the death penalty ... there is no adequate punishment for the most vicious criminals.

During the moratorium, the Illinois Capital Punishment Commission and Reform Study Committee made several recommendations for improvement, including requiring the state Supreme Court to review all death sentences, setting minimum standards for DNA evidence, and increasing funding for indigent defense. The committee also recommended a full cost analysis, but it was never conducted.

The moratorium was not lifted and many, including Representative Jim Durkin, believe the reforms were not given an adequate chance. "This was not about frustration over a system that could not be made workable," he says. "This is strictly about abolitionists being morally opposed to the death penalty. That's fine, but be honest about it."

Without the death penalty, Durkin believes, there is no adequate punishment for the most vicious criminals. "A lot of these other arguments will not matter when someone is faced with the murder of a loved one."

In Connecticut, the state's capital punishment abolishment debate took place at the same time as the trials for one of the most horrific crimes in the state's history, a home invasion that resulted in the murder of three members of the Petit family.

One of the killers, Steven Hayes, was convicted and sentenced to death earlier this year. Joshua Komisarjevsky, his accused accomplice, is set to go on trial in September. Many fear that making any change to Connecticut's current death penalty will make it unavailable to punish these men.

"If there were ever a case to merit the death penalty, this would be it," says Senator John Kissel. "And if the bill passed, while not retroactive, it could give these men grounds for appeal."

During the General Assembly's 2011 capital penalty debate, the Office of Fiscal Analysis reported Connecticut spends $3.3 million a year on death row cases and has performed only one execution since reinstating capital punishment in 1977. Lawmakers also heard from James Tillman, who spent 16 years in prison before DNA testing exonerated him. Some worry similar tests may one day prove the state has performed wrongful executions.

"A government that cannot guarantee the absolute accuracy of its proceedings should not take to itself the power of taking a human life," said Senator Martin Looney, referring to the Tillman case.

"Once someone is killed they are dead forever," says Senator Edith Prague, a long-time supporter of the death penalty. "Between the cost of capital punishment and the recent exonerations of innocent people, I have decided to generally support repeal."

But Prague ultimately changed her mind and cast the deciding vote against repeal after meeting with Dr. William Petit, the sole survivor of the Connecticut home invasion that robbed him of his family.

"If repeal comes up in the future, I will support it," she says. "The difference with this case is that these are the guys who did it. Their identity is not in doubt, and after meeting with Dr. Petit I know this is the right thing to do."

With passionate proponents on each side, the death penalty will likely be on a repeal/reinstate see-saw indefinitely. This year, lawmakers in New Jersey and New Mexico have debated legislation to once again reinstate capital punishment. Although it's unlikely either bill will pass in 2011, the issue will be raised again in the future.

"There are certain heinous crimes that rise to the level of warranting the death penalty-killing a child, murdering a police officer, acts of terrorism," says Senator Robert Singer, the bill's sponsor in New Jersey. "Our old law had problems, but problems that can be fixed."

Books

John D. Bessler Cruel & Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders' Eighth Amendment. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2012.

Robert M. Bohm Capital Punishment's Collateral Damage. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2013.

Raymond Bonner Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.

Kathleen A. Cairns Proof of Guilt: Barbara Graham and the Politics of Executing Women in America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013.

Martin Clancy and Tim O'Brien Murder at the Supreme Court: Lethal Crimes and Landmark Cases. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2013.

David R. Dow The Autobiography of an Execution. New York: Twelve, 2010.

David Garland Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010.

Brandon L. Garrett Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.

Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian In This Timeless Time: Living and Dying on Death Row in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

Richard S. Jaffe Quest for Justice: Defending the Damned. Far Hills, NJ: New Horizon Press, 2012.

Charles Lane Stay of Execution: Saving the Death Penalty from Itself. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.

Eric Lose Living on Death Row. El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2014.

Andrea D. Lyon Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer. New York: Kaplan Publishing, 2010.

Jen Marlowe and Martina Davis-Correia I Am Troy Davis. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2013.

David M. Oshinsky Capital Punishment on Trial: Furman v. Georgia and the Death Penalty in Modern America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010.

Louis J. Palmer Jr. The Death Penalty in the United States: A Complete Guide to Federal and State Laws. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2014.

Michael L. Perlin Mental Disability and the Death Penalty: The Shame of the States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013.

Wilbert Rideau In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.

James D. Slack Abortion, Execution, and the Consequences of Taking Life. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2014.

Periodicals and Internet Sources

Allen Ault "Ordering Death in Georgia Prisons," Newsweek, September 25, 2011. www.newsweek.com.

Marc Bookman "The Confessions of Innocent Men," Atlantic, August 6, 2013.

Boston Globe "New Hampshire Should Abolish Death Penalty," April 16, 2014.

Andrew Cohen "The Problems with the Death Penalty Are Already Crystal Clear," Atlantic, May 5, 2014.

Boer Deng and Dahlia Lithwick "Liberal Guilt," Slate, May 9, 2014. www.slate.com.

Richard C. Dieter "Struck By Lightning: The Continuing Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty Thirty-Five Years After Its Re-instatement in 1976," Death Penalty Information Center, July 2011. www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.

Matt Ford "Can Europe End the Death Penalty in America?," Atlantic, February 18, 2014.

Alex Gibney, Robert Redford, and Susan Sarandon "Redford, Gibney, Sarandon: Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Flawed Death Penalty, Too," Salon, March 21, 2014. www.salon.com.

Stephen John Hartnett "5 Things You Should Know About the History of the Death Penalty," AlterNet, April 15, 2013. www.alternet.org.

Richard Kim "The Oklahoma Way of Death," Nation, May 26, 2014.

Pema Levy "An Unlikely Conservative Cause: Abolish the Death Penalty," Newsweek, May 14, 2014. www.newsweek.com.

Tanya Lewis "Why Lethal Injection Drugs Don't Always Work as Expected," Huffington Post, May 1, 2014. www.huffingtonpost.com.

Dahlia Lithwick "When the Death Penalty Turns into Torture," Slate, April 30, 2014. www.slate.com.

John R. Lott Jr. "Another Round in the Death-Penalty Debate," National Review Online, May 13, 2014. www.nationalreview.com.

Matt McCarthy "What's the Best Way to Execute Someone?," Slate, March 27, 2014. www.slate.com.

Laura Moye "Supreme Court Must Not Allow Executions of the Mentally Impaired," CNN, August 8, 2012. www.cnn.com.

New York Times "State-Sponsored Horror in Oklahoma," April 30, 2014.

Leon Neyfakh "The Conservative Case Against the Death Penalty," Boston Globe, May 25, 2014.

Marvin Olasky "Better Off Dead?: Capital Punishment Versus (a Horrifying) Life Without Parole," Townhall, October 15, 2013. www.townhall.com.

Debra J. Saunders "If Lethal Injection Is Torture, Who's Responsible?," Townhall, May 2, 2014. www.townhall.com.

Liliana Segura "Florida's Gruesome Execution Theater," Washington Post, March 19, 2014.

Peter Singer "The Death Penalty-Again," Project Syndicate, October 12, 2011. www.project-syndicate.org.

Jacob Sullum "A Lethal Injection of Reality," Reason, May 7, 2014. www.reason.com.

Mark Tooley "Jesus and the Death Penalty," American Spectator, May 3, 2014.

David Von Drehle "More Innocent People on Death Row than Estimated," Time, April 28, 2014.

Paul Waldman "Where the Death Penalty Stands," American Prospect, April 18, 2014.

Lane Wallace "Are All Murderers Mentally Ill?," Atlantic, December 3, 2010.

Source Citation

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Preface to "Does the Death Penalty Serve the Public Good?"

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The question of whether capital punishment is an acceptable way to administer justice has long perplexed the nation's lawmakers and divided its citizens. Traditional arguments pit those who believe the death penalty has no place in a civilized society against supporters who see it as an appropriate deterrent and punishment for the most heinous crimes.

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In the article they say “Capital punishment is an intolerable denial of civil liberties and is inconsistent with the fundamental values of our democratic system.  The death penalty is uncivilized in theory and unfair and inequitable in practice.  Through litigation, legislation, and advocacy against this barbaric and brutal institution, we strive to prevent executions and seek the abolition of capital punishment. “ They also mention how Innocent people are too often sentenced to death.  Since 1973, over 156 people have been released from death rows in 26 states because of innocence.

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This article talks about how more countries are abolishing the death penalty. In the article it says “A “new dynamic” has emerged that recognizes capital punishment as a denial of the universal human rights to life and to freedom from tortuous, cruel, and inhuman punishment, and international human rights treaties and institutions that embody the abolition of capital punishment as a universal goal “ They are abolishing this to prevent from killing innocent ones from being executed

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They talk about how in certain places they’re more likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant than for a white defendant in a similar case.more than 180 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence.

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This is GEORGE STINNEY jr, He was the youngest person sentenced to the death penalty He was only 14 when he was executed by electric chair During his trial,He was accused of killing two white girls,. At that time all the jurors were white. The trial lasted only 2 hours and they sentenced him 10 minutes later.

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This picture tells us how that by killing somebody else doesn’t really give you justice , you just take away another life but that doesn’t bring back the life of the other person / or take back the crime they committed

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This is the electric chair ,This is one of the many ways they execute people

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80% have been executed by false accusation
This show how they wrongfully execute innocent people

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This video talks about the lethal injection. And how they work and how you can’t find those in the United States so they give you something else that paralyses your muscles.

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In this video he talks about how the death penalty has been abolished in many states , but some still use it and the justice department has allowed more methods to execute people

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Should the death penalty be abolished worldwide? | Inside Story

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Some people get the chance to ask for one final meal before they are executed