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http://www.king5.com/article/news/politics/king-county-prosecutor-calls-for-repeal-of-states-death-penalty/281-386450089

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The studies have been the subject of sharp criticism, much of it from legal scholars who say that the theories of economists do not apply to the violent world of crime and punishment. Critics of the studies say they are based on faulty premises, insufficient data and flawed methodologies.

The death penalty "is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors," John J. Donohue III, a law professor at Yale with a doctorate in economics, and Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in the Stanford Law Review in 2005. "The existing evidence for deterrence," they concluded, "is surprisingly fragile."

Gary Becker, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1992 and has followed the debate, said the current empirical evidence was "certainly not decisive" because "we just don't get enough variation to be confident we have isolated a deterrent effect."

But, Mr. Becker added, "the evidence of a variety of types - not simply the quantitative evidence - has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses."

The debate, which first gained significant academic attention two years ago, reprises one from the 1970's, when early and since largely discredited studies on the deterrent effect of capital punishment were discussed in the Supreme Court's decision to reinstitute capital punishment in 1976 after a four-year moratorium.

The early studies were inconclusive, Justice Potter Stewart wrote for three justices in the majority in that decision. But he nonetheless concluded that "the death penalty undoubtedly is a significant deterrent."

The Supreme Court now appears to have once again imposed a moratorium on executions as it considers how to assess the constitutionality of lethal injections. The decision in that case, which is expected next year, will be much narrower than the one in 1976, and the new studies will probably not play any direct role in it.

But the studies have started to reshape the debate over capital punishment and to influence prominent legal scholars.

"The evidence on whether it has a significant deterrent effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one," said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has frequently taken liberal positions. "I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it's probably justified."

Professor Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, a law professor at Harvard, wrote in their own Stanford Law Review article that "the recent evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment seems impressive, especially in light of its 'apparent power and unanimity,' " quoting a conclusion of a separate overview of the evidence in 2005 by Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford, in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.

"Capital punishment may well save lives," the two professors continued. "Those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that the failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life."

To a large extent, the participants in the debate talk past one another because they work in different disciplines.

"You have two parallel universes - economists and others," said Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of "The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment." Responding to the new studies, he said, "is like learning to waltz with a cloud."

To economists, it is obvious that if the cost of an activity rises, the amount of the activity will drop.

"To say anything else is to brand yourself an imbecile," said Professor Wolfers, an author of the Stanford Law Review article criticizing the death penalty studies.

To many economists, then, it follows inexorably that there will be fewer murders as the likelihood of execution rises.

"I am definitely against the death penalty on lots of different grounds," said Joanna M. Shepherd, a law professor at Emory with a doctorate in economics who wrote or contributed to several studies. "But I do believe that people respond to incentives."

But not everyone agrees that potential murderers know enough or can think clearly enough to make rational calculations. And the chances of being caught, convicted, sentenced to death and executed are in any event quite remote. Only about one in 300 homicides results in an execution.

"I honestly think it's a distraction," Professor Wolfers said. "The debate here is over whether we kill 60 guys or not. The food stamps program is much more important."

The studies try to explain changes in the murder rate over time, asking whether the use of the death penalty made a difference. They look at the experiences of states or counties, gauging whether executions at a given time seemed to affect the murder rate that year, the year after or at some other later time. And they try to remove the influence of broader social trends like the crime rate generally, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, economic conditions and demographic changes.

Critics say the larger factors are impossible to disentangle from whatever effects executions may have. They add that the new studies' conclusions are skewed by data from a few anomalous jurisdictions, notably Texas, and by a failure to distinguish among various kinds of homicide.

There is also a classic economics question lurking in the background, Professor Wolfers said. "Capital punishment is very expensive," he said, "so if you choose to spend money on capital punishment you are choosing not to spend it somewhere else, like policing."

A single capital litigation can cost more than $1 million. It is at least possible that devoting that money to crime prevention would prevent more murders than whatever number, if any, an execution would deter.

The recent studies are, some independent observers say, of good quality, given the limitations of the available data.

"These are sophisticated econometricians who know how to do multiple regression analysis at a pretty high level," Professor Weisberg of Stanford said.

The economics studies are, moreover, typically published in peer-reviewed journals, while critiques tend to appear in law reviews edited by students.

The available data is nevertheless thin, mostly because there are so few executions.

In 2003, for instance, there were more than 16,000 homicides but only 153 death sentences and 65 executions.

"It seems unlikely," Professor Donohue and Professor Wolfers concluded in their Stanford article, "that any study based only on recent U.S. data can find a reliable link between homicide and execution rates."

The two professors offered one particularly compelling comparison. Canada has executed no one since 1962. Yet the murder rates in the United States and Canada have moved in close parallel since then, including before, during and after the four-year death penalty moratorium in the United States in the 1970s.

If criminals do not clearly respond to the slim possibility of an execution, another study suggested, they are affected by the kind of existence they will face in their state prison system.

A 2003 paper by Lawrence Katz, Steven D. Levitt and Ellen Shustorovich published in The American Law and Economics Review found a "a strong and robust negative relationship" between prison conditions, as measured by the number of deaths in prison from any cause, and the crime rate. The effect is, the authors say, "quite large: 30-100 violent crimes and a similar number or property crimes" were deterred per prison death.

On the other hand, the authors found, "there simply does not appear to be enough information in the data on capital punishment to reliably estimate a deterrent effect."

There is a lesson here, according to some scholars.

"Deterrence cannot be achieved with a half-hearted execution program," Professor Shepherd of Emory wrote in the Michigan Law Review in 2005. She found a deterrent effect in only those states that executed at least nine people between 1977 and 1996.

Professor Wolfers said the answer to the question of whether the death penalty deterred was "not unknowable in the abstract," given enough data.

"If I was allowed 1,000 executions and 1,000 exonerations, and I was allowed to do it in a random, focused way," he said, "I could probably give you an answer."

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Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate

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The studies have been the subject of sharp criticism, much of it from legal scholars who say that the theories of economists do not apply to the violent world of crime and punishment. Critics of the studies say they are based on faulty premises, insufficient data and flawed methodologies.

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Since 1977, one year after the US Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of the death penalty, more than 1,480 people have been executed, primarily by means of lethal injection. Most death penalty cases involve the execution of murderers although capital punishment can also be applied for treason, espionage, and other crimes.

Proponents of the death penalty say it is an important tool for preserving law and order, deters crime, and costs less than life imprisonment. They argue that retribution or "an eye for an eye" honors the victim, helps console grieving families, and ensures that the perpetrators of heinous crimes never have an opportunity to cause future tragedy.

Opponents of capital punishment say it has no deterrent effect on crime, wrongly gives governments the power to take human life, and perpetuates social injustices by disproportionately targeting people of color (racist) and people who cannot afford good attorneys (classist). They say lifetime jail sentences are a more severe and less expensive punishment than death.

PROS & CONS BY CATEGORY

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Death Penalty - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org

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The pros and cons of the death penalty debate include aguments for and against life imprisonment, crime deterrence, and methods like hanging.

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Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments - Death Penalty - ProCon.org

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Should the death penalty be allowed? Morality Constitutionality Deterrence Retribution Irrevocable Mistakes Cost of Death vs. Life in Prison Race Closure for Victims' Families Attorney Quality Physicians at Execution 1. Morality "[W]e reserve the death penalty in the United States for the most heinous murders and the most brutal and conscienceless murderers.

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States With and Without the Death Penalty | Death Penalty Information Center

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On August 2, 2016, the Delaware Supreme Court held that the state's capital sentencing procedures were unconstitutional and struck down Delaware's death penalty statute. The Delaware Attorney General's office did not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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You will submit your CBA through Google Classroom using the assignment, "History CBA 2018"

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Example of what MLA citations look like in the text & Bibliography

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Another example of MLA in-text citations

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This is how the Resources are organized on the Bibliography page

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Ten Reasons the Death Penalty Should be Legal

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Ten Reasons the Death Penalty Should be Legal

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The Constitution of the United States, more specifically through the application of the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments permit the use of the death penalty in appropriate cases.

There were, most notably in the 1960s, several attempts made to declare the use of the death penalty unconstitutional based on the fact that it was 'cruel and unusual' and therefore contrary to the Eighth Amendment. The 1958 Supreme Court case of Trop V Dulles while not a death penalty case interpreted the Eighth Amendment as containing an 'evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society'. This statement was used as a basis for the abolitionist campaign. 10 years later in 1968 in US v Jackson the Supreme Court started to consider the practical application of the death penalty ruling that the death penalty could be imposed even when not recommended by a Jury. The same year the Court ruled that a juror's reservations to the death penalty were not enough to bar them from serving in and of themselves unless they were so strong as to prevent the juror from making an impartial decision.

By 1972 Eighth Amendment challenges resulted in State Death Penalty Statutes being suspended for unconstitutionality as they could, as drafted, result in arbitrary sentencing. The states immediately started to fight back, redrafting their statutes to address the problems highlighted by the Supreme Court. The death penalty was effectively reinstated by 1977 when the first execution in years took place in Utah.

The death penalty has therefore been challenged, found wanting, redrafted and found to be legal and constitutional. There is no reason, therefore, for the death penalty to be suspended.

The death penalty is no longer fashionable. Ruled illegal in much of Europe and most of the developed world America is unusual amongst equivalent nations in its adherence to the practice. Liberal abolitionists have argued that the flaws in the legal system including the potential for the execution of innocents and the societal disparities in sentencing (see below) are of sufficient concern as to make the practice unethical.

The once deeply held public and professional opinion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to crime is widely dismissed but there is more truth in it than the liberals and abolitionists want to acknowledge. Studies undertaken over a number of years show, unequivocally that between 3 and 18 lives could be saved by each execution of a guilty killer. Results from the University of Colorado in Denver show that an execution saves 5 lives while the commuting of a death sentence results in about five more. The reasoning is simple, if the costs of doing something become too high, people will change their behavior to avoid those costs. If the cost reduces people will indulge in that behavior once more.

Yet more research has shown that when the state of Illinois suspended executions in 2000 there were an extra 150 homicides over the following 4 years. More research needs to be undertaken to ensure the quality and accuracy of the methodology and data but the results seem incontrovertible - the death penalty acts as a deterrent and as a result saves lives.

We are taught (or at least we should be) from our earliest years that actions have consequences. Touching a hot stove burns your hand, annoying your parent causes them to punish you etc. Every parent knows that failing to link actions to consequences leads to children who do what they want when they want. The same holds true for adults. We pay our taxes because we don't want to face the consequences of not doing so. Consequences bring order to our society.

The same holds true for violent and dangerous crimes, where someone acts in such a way as to take the life of another they have to be punished, they have to expect retribution, they have to pay the price of their actions and it should be in equal measure.

Abolitionists often confuse retribution (the payment of debt to society) with revenge which is a hot blooded reaction to the loss by those who have suffered it. We have a police and subsequently legal process precisely to prevent hot blooded revenge from taking over and to ensure a rational, logical and fair response to a crime. This is why the death penalty is a reasonable and proportionate response to a killing but not to a rape, no matter how violent, where the victim does not lose their life.

If there is no retribution (or no reasonable level of retribution) exacted then there is no reasonable deterrent (see above) to prevent homicide.

Those who are opposed to the death penalty often like to claim that it is extremely expensive citing figures of up to $2 million per individual in death row. The equivalent costs of detaining a prisoner for life without parole come in, they claim, at $1 million per individual.

A quick analysis of the cost of detention for life without parole show that detention will cost approximately $34,000 per year for an average of 50 years. The cost of trial and appeals will come in at about $75,000. Assuming a cost increase of a conservative 2% per annum the costs come in at over $3 million for 50 years detention, rising to $5.5 million if a 4% cost increase is assumed.

While the costs of death row are higher coming in at almost double the cost of life incarceration or about $60,000 these costs are not typically borne for anywhere near as long, an average of just 6 years. Trials and appeals will also be more costly coming in at approximately $1.5 million giving a total of $1.88 million assuming 2% per annum cost increases and $1.91 million with a 4% costs increase. This analysis shows that the overall costs of the death penalty where called for are much lower than a lengthy incarceration without parole and that is even before adjustment to life costs has been made to cover the costs of treating the diseases and suffering of old age which typically are complex and expensive to treat.

This may seem like a rather illogical argument but it is one that is often deployed by pro death penalty campaigners in Japan.

Crime is not rampant in Japan which experiences on average 1,200 or fewer murders a year, approximately equivalent to the number of homicides in France which has half the Japanese population. Japanese executions are carried out by hanging and 76 out of 102 inmates on death row were executed between 1993 and 2008.

Because the death penalty is used relatively sparingly in Japan (although with increasing frequency since the turn of the century) there was thought at one point that the penalty would be abolished and under one Minister of Justice there was a de facto moratorium on the death penalty as he refused to authorize executions.

Nevertheless the death penalty remains for the reason that it has an important psychological impact on Japanese society. Like Americans the Japanese work hard, they get relatively few days off and are expected to put their employer's needs before their own. The death penalty shows the hard working ordinary Japanese that bad things happen to bad people. The necessary concomitant of this is the belief that good things happen to good people. Therefore, psychologists in Japan believe, when people see the bad punished they think they will receive rewards for being good.

Of course Japanese people are psychologically very different from Americans but the argument is interesting and could be of application in the US. After all who does not believe that people should get what is coming to them!

Read any argument for the abolition of the death penalty and you will almost certainly be told that the death penalty is an unfair burden on racial minority Americans, more specifically black Americans with the death penalty being, in effect, a reflection of a middle class ' desire' to strike at racial minorities. If this were true it would be a good reason to suspend the death penalty to ensure that its application was even and fair but the claims are simply so much rubbish. The death penalty in America is color blind!

Abolitionists claim that white lives are accorded more value than black because the vast majority (82%) of all death penalty murder victims are white and only 13% black. Black deaths, so the argument goes, are simply not deserving of the death penalty. However this imbalance may simply be due to the fact that more white Americans are victims of killings the circumstances of which attract the death penalty.

When it comes to actual executions the statistics are reversed. 56% of all those executed for death penalty crimes are white and only 38% black, this is despite the fact that black criminals committed 47% of all murders with whites responsible for only 38%. The conclusions are startling, white Americans who kill other whites are more likely to end up on death row than black Americans who kill whites and white killers of black victims are more likely to receive the death penalty than black killers of white victims and white killers are executed 15 months faster than black killers on death row.

Despite these statistics no one claims the system is biased against white killers. They don't make the claim because the system is not inherently racist. Those who murder receive the death penalty if, and only if, they meet all the necessary criteria for it to be handed down not simply because of the color of their skin.

Much like the arguments pertaining to race (see above) those in favor of abolishing the death penalty claim that it is unfairly burdensome on the poorer members of society. Those unable to afford a decent lawyer, so the claim goes, will have to make do with a public defender. These public lawyers are, in the eyes of abolitionists, incompetent, unprepared and woefully underpaid. They are often incapable of mounting an effective defense and are often nothing more than a figurehead, a sop to the American ideal of free legal representation that no longer exists in reality.

This paints a pretty picture, everyone loves an underdog and the idea that people are being denied due process and adequate representation seems inherently un-American. The pretty picture is, however, nothing more than a myth built on shaky foundations. It may have been true in the past but the reality today is very different. Over recent decades many states have overhauled their previously inadequate public defender systems and provide extensive funding for the expert witnesses required to mount an effective defense. Many law firms, looking for good publicity, will take on a capital case on a pro-bono basis and may even offer partnership to lawyers who work in capital defense cases.

One of the reasons people claim that the death penalty should be abolished is the danger of an erroneous conviction. The death penalty is final, there is no coming back from it whereas a mistaken conviction leading to a life sentence can result in the individual being released and granted compensation.

The key thing to bear in mind is that while mistakes can occur in any judicial system (and they do) the likelihood of mistakes in any one case can be protected against. The standard of proof required in death penalty cases is very high and death penalty juries take their responsibilities very seriously indeed. Any person convicted of a death penalty crime has the automatic right to a funded appeal to a higher court. The checks and balances designed into the system ensure that the chances of a mistake are very low indeed. Indeed prisoners are 6 times more likely to be released from death row on appeal than walk the route to the execution chamber.

Reviews have shown that 23 potentially innocent people were executed in the US since 1900. Commentary on the review shows that there is no proof as to the innocence of those 23 individuals. What the study has shown is not that mistaken executions are common but that they are almost vanishingly rare. No person subsequently proved to be innocent has been executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977.

Add to this the advances in forensic science and technology. DNA evidence can now be obtained from almost vanishingly small samples allowing for the innocent to be exonerated relatively easily. There is a danger that juries become conditioned by television programs and media reporting to believe that DNA holds all the answers. As a result it is vital that judges give the juries adequate directions to enable them to interpret the evidence before them. It is also why, in spite of what seems to be an almost god like ability to determine whether or not someone was present in the room or handled a weapon, we still require juries to analyze whether or not the evidence is believable. This combination of cutting edge technology and human analysis of credibility is one of the true strengths of the legal system and a defense against wrongful conviction.

36 States in the USA conduct their executions through the use of lethal injection. To many lay people this might seem a calm and peaceful, painless end. After all when a much loved pet is in pain we take them to the vet for an injection and hold them as they breathe their last, we know they feel no pain, only a gentle slide into oblivion.

The protocol for human lethal injection is slightly different. 30 of the 36 states use a combination of an anesthetic, a paralytic and a drug to stop the heart. In recent years supplies of the barbiturate of choice have run low leading to the need to source the drug elsewhere. Some experts claim that execution by lethal injection causes needless pain and suffering particularly since the anesthetic barbiturate which is meant to render the convict unconscious and unable to feel the effects of the second two drugs does not always act as intended as doses are not strictly calculated. If a sufficiently powerful dose is not administered they will feel excruciating pain.

Nevertheless the Supreme Court ruled in the 2008 decision of Baze v Rees that the triple cocktail lethal injection method did not constitute cruel and unreasonable punishment.

It is not just lethal injections that can go wrong, several executions by electric chair have also been botched requiring second jolts. Analysis shows that at least 47 executions have been botched since 1977, in some cases the convict took nearly 2 hours to die. Executions do not have to be that way. Utah allows execution by firing squad, it might seem backwards but is possibly more humane than lethal injection. The UK no longer executes prisoners but when it did the executions were done by hanging. This has been abandoned as a method of execution in most US states (it remains as a potential secondary method in New Hampshire, Delaware and Washington in the event a lethal injection cannot be carried out). Concerns with hanging include a potential lengthy suffocation process if a short drop is used or beheading if a violent long drop is used. The UK developed a system which included the use of a device to dislocate the neck which together with a drop length calculated against the bodyweight of the criminal would result in an almost instantaneous and almost painless death.

Given the concerns that exist with the preferred American execution methods of lethal injection and electrocution it would seem better to adopt (or allow prisoners to request) a firing squad or British style measured drop hanging. This would remove all potential to claim that the punishment was cruel or unusual.

We are told, by those in favor of abolition of the death penalty, that human life is sacred, that man should not play God. The truth is, however, that those people who have committed the type of crimes for which the death penalty is applicable have put themselves beyond the pale of humanity. They have chosen to act in a manner that is directly at odds with the morals of society at large and as such they must expect to be sanctioned. Should Ted Bundy have been allowed to live? Should John Wayne Gacy?

Does the imposition of the death penalty result in man putting themselves in God's shoes? Many Christian theologians think not. St Augustine in Chapter 21 of his book The City of God argues that the executioner in a legally sanctioned death is but a ' sword in the hand'. Going even deeper into the core of Christian teaching St Paul mandates the use of capital punishment in appropriate circumstances in Romans 13:4 'If thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil'. Meanwhile Matthew reports that Jesus instructed that 'all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword'. Human life is, indeed, sacred which is why it behoves us to punish those who take it.

The argument that it is morally superior not to execute prisoners is as seductive as it is misleading. It is easy to feel sorry for someone in an orange suit who says they repent of their crime but at the end of the day they did commit a crime. Furthermore the crime they committed, in order to find themselves on death row was no ordinary crime. It was cruel, it was violent and it ended the life of another person, an innocent victim.

It is only right and proper that people are punished for the crimes they commit. It is also right that that punishment be proportionate. What possible punishment other than death could possibly go towards expiating the guilt of the accused, allowing for appropriate retribution and act as a deterrent to others who might wish to commit such crimes.

Most of the arguments against the death penalty; those of inherent unfairness and bias towards the poor or racial minorities or the devastating potential for mistaken execution are both fallacious and misleading.

While we do believe that America could improve its method of executions to ensure that they are as swift and painless as possible we also believe that the death penalty is necessary and important and should remain at the present time.

Dave is a voracious reader and ferocious writer of top 10 lists. In his spare time he enjoys spending time with his wife, mountain biking in Southern California, and running.

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10 Reasons The Death Penalty Should Be Legal in all States

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10 Reasons The Death Penalty Should Be Legal Should the death penalty be legal? To listen to some people in favor of the abolition of the death penalty or organizations such as Amnesty International the United States, by executing criminals, stands alongside such countries as China and Saudi Ar ...

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Capital Punishment Deserves a Quick Death

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Capital Punishment Deserves a Quick Death

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Editorial

Credit... Yarek Waszul

Alva Campbell was supposed to die on Nov. 15. That was the date chosen by the State of Ohio, which had convicted and condemned Mr. Campbell for murdering a teenager, Charles Dials, during a 1997 carjacking in Columbus.

Inside the death chamber that morning, prison officials spent more than an hour searching Mr. Campbell's arms and legs for a vein into which they could inject the lethal drug cocktail. They comforted him as they prepared to kill him, providing the 69-year-old with a wedge pillow to help with breathing problems related to his years of heavy smoking.

After about 80 minutes, they gave up and returned Mr. Campbell to his cell, where he sits awaiting his next date with death, now set for June 5, 2019.

The pathetic scene was a fitting symbol of the state of capital punishment in America in 2017, a vile practice that descends further into macabre farce even as it declines in use. Mr. Campbell would have been the 24th person put to death last year. That's less than a quarter of the 98 executions carried out in 1999.

The number should be zero. As the nation enters 2018, the Supreme Court is considering whether to hear at least one case asking it to strike down the death penalty, once and for all, for violating the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

Whether the justices take that or another case, the facts they face will be the same: The death penalty is a savage, racially biased, arbitrary and pointless punishment that becomes rarer and more geographically isolated with every year. In 2017 the total number of people sitting on death rows across America fell for the 17th straight year. In Harris County, Tex., the nation's undisputed leader in state-sanctioned killing, the year passed without a single execution or death sentence - the first time that's happened in more than 40 years.

Still, Texas was one of just two states - Arkansas is the other - responsible for almost half of 2017's executions. And nearly one in three of the nation's 39 new death sentences last year were handed down in three counties: Riverside in California, Clark in Nevada and Maricopa in Arizona.

It would be tempting to conclude from this litany, which is drawn from an annual report by the Death Penalty Information Center, that capital punishment is being reserved for the most horrific crimes committed by the most incorrigible offenders. But it would be wrong.

The death penalty is not and has never been about the severity of any given crime. Mental illness, intellectual disability, brain damage, childhood abuse or neglect, abysmal lawyers, minimal judicial review, a white victim - these factors are far more closely associated with who ends up getting executed. Of the 23 people put to death in 2017, all but three had at least one of these factors, according to the report. Eight were younger than 21 at the time of their crime.

More troubling still are the wrongful convictions. In 2017, four more people who had been sentenced to death were exonerated, for a total of 160 since 1973 - a time during which 1,465 people were executed. In many of the exonerations, prosecutors won convictions and sentences despite questionable or nonexistent evidence, pervasive misconduct or a pattern of racial bias. A 2014 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences extrapolated from known cases of wrongful convictions to estimate that at least 4 percent of all death-row inmates are wrongfully convicted. Against this backdrop, it would take an enormous leap of faith to believe that no innocent person has ever been executed.

This page has long opposed the death penalty, and would continue to even if the penalty's application were completely free of bias and error. That is an unattainable goal, as should be obvious by now. Perhaps this explains why Americans, whose support for capital punishment climbed as high as 80 percent in 1994, have increasingly lost their appetite for state-sanctioned killing. Support is down to around 55 percent, its lowest level in 45 years.

The rest of the developed world agreed to reject this cruel and pointless practice long ago. How can it be ended here, for good?

Leaving it up to individual states is not the solution. It's true that 19 states and the District of Columbia have already banned capital punishment, four have suspended it and eight others haven't executed anyone in more than a decade. Some particularly awful state policies have also been eliminated in the past couple of years, like a Florida law that permitted non-unanimous juries to impose death sentences, and an Alabama rule empowering judges to override a jury's vote for life, even a unanimous one, and impose death.

And yet at the same time, states have passed laws intended to speed up the capital appeals process, despite the growing evidence of legal errors and prosecutorial misconduct that can be hidden for years or longer. Other states have gone to great lengths to hide their lethal-injection protocols from public scrutiny, even as executions with untested drugs have gone awry and pharmaceutical companies have objected to the use of their products to kill people.

Last summer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that the death penalty would eventually end with a whimper. "The incidence of capital punishment has gone down, down, down so that now, I think, there are only three states that actually administer the death penalty," Justice Ginsburg said at a law school event. "We may see an end to capital punishment by attrition as there are fewer and fewer executions."

That's a dispiriting take. The death penalty holdouts may be few and far between, but they are fiercely committed, and they won't stop killing people unless they're forced to. Relying on the vague idea of attrition absolves the court of its responsibility to be the ultimate arbiter and guardian of the Constitution - and specifically of the Eighth Amendment. The court has already relied on that provision to ban the execution of juvenile offenders, the intellectually disabled and those convicted of crimes against people other than murder.

There's no reason not to take the final step. The justices have all the information they need right now to bring America in line with most of the rest of the world and end the death penalty for good.

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Opinion | Capital Punishment Deserves a Quick Death (Published 2018)

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Editorial Alva Campbell was supposed to die on Nov. 15. That was the date chosen by the State of Ohio, which had convicted and condemned Mr. Campbell for murdering a teenager, Charles Dials, during a 1997 carjacking in Columbus.

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3 Reasons to Get Rid of the Death Penalty

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3 Reasons to Get Rid of the Death Penalty

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There are at least 10 executions scheduled to take place in the United States before the end of the year. Since the Supreme Court re-allowed executions in 1976, about 1,400 people have been executed.

Whether it's because of botched attempts like the recent "macabre screw-ups" in Oklahoma and Ohio or the increasing number of cases in which death row inmates are exonerated, the case for capital punishment seems to get weaker with every new execution.

Here are three reasons to get rid of the death penalty.
1. The death penalty is too expensive.
Between 1980 and 2012, California spent $4 billion administering death penalty cases while actually executing just 13 individuals, according to a study produced by Loyola Marymount Law Professor Paula Mitchell. When the death penalty is in play, she says, "the legal costs [per case] skyrocket to an extra $134 million per year, well above the cost to implement life without possibility of parole."

Given the legitimate need to hear appeals in death penalty cases, there will never be a way to make killing people less expensive that paying for them to serve out life sentences.
2. The death penalty doesn't deter crime.
A 2009 study by University of Colorado scholars published in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology concludes flatly "the consensus among criminologists is that the death penalty does not add any significant deterrent effect above that of long-term imprisonment." Fully 88 percent of criminal-justice experts responding to a poll saying the death penalty does not act as a deterrent of murder.

What's more, the murder rate per 100,000 residents in non-death-penalty states has been consistently lower than the rate in states with executions.
3. The government shouldn't kill people.
The state's first role-and arguably its only one-is protecting the lives and property of its citizens. In everything it does-from collecting taxes to seizing property for public works to incentivizing "good" behaviors and habits-it should use the least violence or coercion possible.

No matter how despicable murderers can be, the state can make sure we're safe by locking them up behind bars for the rest of their-and our-lives. That's not only a cheaper answer than state-sanctioned murder, it's a more moral one, too.

Written and narrated by Nick Gillespie. Produced by Meredith Bragg and Joshua Swain.

About 2 minutes. Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube channel to get automatic notifications when new videos go live.

This video is based on a longer, link-rich article Gillespie wrote for The Daily Beast. Go here to read the original.

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3 Reasons to Get Rid of the Death Penalty

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There are at least 10 executions scheduled to take place in the United States before the end of the year. Since the Supreme Court re-allowed executions in 1976, about 1,400 people have been executed.

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The Reasons For & Against

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In some countries it is legal to kill someone if they have committed a terrible crime. This is called a death sentence, or the death penalty.

It is not legal in Britain.

There are lots of reasons why people think it's right or wrong.

Here are some of the arguments:

Arguments for the death penalty

If someone murders someone else, they have given up their human rights, including the one to stay alive themselves

The punishment should 'fit the crime' - if you have killed someone, you should be killed too

Giving a killer the death sentence will stop them - and others - doing it again

The very small chance of executing the wrong person is balanced by the benefits to society of putting off other murderers

Arguments against the death penalty

The death penalty goes against our most basic human right - the right to life

Being killed by lethal injection or being electrocuted is not always smooth and painless, sometimes it causes a painful death

No-one has ever proven with numbers that killing murderers stops other people committing similar crimes

Mistakes are sometimes made in the law - what if someone is killed who is actually innocent?

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The death penalty - the arguments for and against - CBBC Newsround

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In some countries it is legal to kill someone if they have committed a terrible crime. This is called a death sentence, or the death penalty. It is not legal in Britain. There are lots of reasons why people think it's right or wrong.

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Article

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What Americans Don't Understand About the Death Penalty

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What Americans Don't Understand About the Death Penalty

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Washington Governor Suspends the Death Penalty

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Washington Governor Suspends the Death Penalty

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In ruling California's death penalty unconstitutional, a federal judge said Wednesday the system is so broken it unfairly leaves inmates with uncertain fates -- often for decades.

In his decision, Santa Ana-based Judge Cormac J. Carney vacated the 1995 death sentence of Ernest D. Jones, who petitioned the court to determine whether his death sentence was valid.

Carney wrote: "Allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr. Jones with the slight possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. "

The decision will certainly be appealed, said CNN legal analysts Jeffrey Toobin and Mark Geragos. Toobin said no executions could proceed in California while the decision stands.

In California, there are 748 people on death row, the most of any state.

No executions have been carried out since California put a moratorium on the death penalty in 2006. Four years later, the state sought to execute a man who raped and murdered a 15-year-old girl, but it was blocked by state and federal courts over concerns about lethal injections.

In Wednesday's ruling, Carney called the administration of the state's death penalty system "dysfunctional."

"In California, the execution of a death sentence is so infrequent, and the delays preceding it so extraordinary, that the death penalty is deprived of any deterrent or retributive effect it might once have had," he wrote. "Such an outcome is antithetical to any civilized notion of just punishment."

Since 1978, more than 900 people in the state have been sentenced to death row, where inmates spend 23 hours alone in their cells. Of those people only 13 have been executed; 94 have died of other causes. Carney said about 40% have been on death row longer than 19 years.

"California's death penalty system is so plagued by inordinate and unpredictable delay that the death sentence is actually carried out against only a trivial few of those sentenced to death," Carney said, noting that it takes an average of three to five years for a death row inmate just to get an court-appointed attorney for an appeal.

The judge noted 285 of the people on death row have been there longer than Jones.

"There clearly was a crisis coming. A lot of people have recognized there is a problem with hundreds of people of death row and hardly any executions," Toobin said. He noted the situation in California is so unusual it wouldn't affect death penalty cases in other states.

California's most recent execution was on January 17, 2006, according to the website for the state's Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation.

Clarence Ray Allen, 76, spent 23 years and one month on death row before dying from a lethal injection. He was convicted of orchestrating a triple murder from prison in 1982.

Michael Laurence, executive director of the Habeas Corpus Resource Center and Jones's lead attorney, said he was glad that a federal judge reaffirmed what a state commission found in 2008.

"There is no rational explanation, much less any moral or societal justification, for which people are ultimately executed," Laurence said in a written statement. "The execution of Mr. Jones, and the others like him whose meritorious legal claims have gone unheard for decades, serves no valid state interest."

The executive director of Death Penalty Focus said the law in California needs to be changed.

"Justice requires that we end this charade once and for all," said Matt Cherry. "It's time to replace California's broken death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole. That's the best way to ensure that convicted killers remain behind bars until they die, without wasting tens of millions of tax dollars every year on needless appeals."

Jones' case is expected to be appealed by prosecutors to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, said.

Nick Pacilio, a spokesman for state Attorney General Kamala Harris, said her office is reviewing the decision.

Jones was tried and received his death sentence at a time when the attention of the world was focused on another case unfolding on the same floor of Los Angeles downtown courthouse -- the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Simpson, who had assembled a legal "dream team," was acquitted; Jones was represented by a public defender.

Jones was convicted and sentenced to death for raping and killing his girlfriend's mother, Julia Miller, a 50-year-old defense industry accountant.

During the trial, Jones was portrayed as the product of a broken home with alcoholic parents. An aunt described his childhood as "a living hell." He grew up in poverty, and his parents used drugs in front of the children and battled violently. His mother beat him and his siblings. He developed a drug habit of his own, which included marijuana and cocaine.

He told witnesses that he had heard voices and experienced flashbacks during the year before the slaying. He said the victim confronted him over his treatment of her daughter and pointed a rifle at him, which caused him to flash back to violent incidents in his childhood, according to the state Supreme Court opinion affirming his conviction.

The court record indicates that Jones had spent several years in prison for raping the mother of a previous girlfriend.

The California Supreme Court in 2003 upheld the conviction of Jones on first-degree murder and rape charges.

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california's death penalty ruled unconstitutional  - cnn

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In ruling California's death penalty unconstitutional, a federal judge said Wednesday the system is so broken it unfairly leaves inmates with uncertain fates -- often for decades. In his decision, Santa Ana-based Judge Cormac J. Carney vacated the 1995 death sentence of Ernest D.

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Fifty-five percent of Americans support the death penalty, according to a 2017 Gallup poll. A survey the polling organization took two years later found that 56% of Americans support capital punishment for convicted murderers, down 4% from a similar poll taken in 2016. While the exact number of poll respondents in favor of the death penalty has fluctuated over the years, a slight majority of those surveyed continue to back capital punishment based on arguments ranging from religious dogma to the cost of covering a life prison sentence. Depending on one's perspective, however, the death penalty may not actually represent justice for victims.

"The Death Penalty Is an Effective Deterrent"

This is probably the most common argument in favor of capital punishment, and there's actually some evidence that the death penalty may be a deterrent to homicide, but it's a very expensive deterrent. As such, the question is not just whether the death penalty prevents crime but whether capital punishment is the most economically efficient deterrent. The death penalty, after all, requires considerable funds and resources, making it extremely costly to implement. Moreover, traditional law enforcement agencies and community violence prevention programs have a much stronger track record vis-a-vis deterrence, and they remain underfunded due, in part, to the expense of the death penalty.

"The Death Penalty is Cheaper Than Feeding a Murderer for Life"

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, independent studies in several states, including Oklahoma, reveal that capital punishment is actually far more expensive to administer than life imprisonment. This is due in part to the lengthy appeals process, which still sends innocent people to death row on a fairly regular basis.

In 1972, citing the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty due to arbitrary sentencing. Justice Potter Stewart wrote for the majority:

"These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual ... [T]he Eighth and Fourteenth 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."

The Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, but only after states reformed their legal statutes to better protect the rights of the accused. As of 2019, 29 states continue to use capital punishment, while 21 prohibit the death penalty.

"Murderers Deserve to Die"

Many Americans share this view, while others oppose the death penalty no matter the crime committed. Death penalty opponents also note that the government is an imperfect human institution and not an instrument of divine retribution. Therefore, it lacks the power, the mandate, and the competence to make sure that good is always proportionally rewarded and evil always proportionally punished. In fact, organizations such as the Innocence Project exist solely to advocate for the wrongfully convicted, and some of the convicted felons it has represented have been on death row.

"The Bible Says 'An Eye for an Eye'"

Actually, there is little support in the Bible for the death penalty. Jesus, who himself was sentenced to death and legally executed, had this to say (Matthew 5:38-48):

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

What about the Hebrew Bible? Well, ancient Rabbinic courts almost never enforced the death penalty due to the high standard of evidence required. The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), which represents the majority of American Jews, has called for the total abolition of the death penalty since 1959.

"Families Deserve Closure"

Families find closure in many different ways, and many never find closure at all. Regardless, "closure" is not a euphemism for vengeance, the desire for which is understandable from an emotional point of view but not from a legal perspective. Vengeance is not justice.

The friends and family of murder victims will live with that loss for the rest of their lives, with or without controversial policy objectives such as the death penalty. Providing and funding long-term mental health care and other services to the families of murder victims is one way to support them.

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These Are the Most Common Arguments in Favor of the Death Penalty

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According to a 2017 Gallup Poll, 55 percent of Americans support the death penalty. Here are some reasons why. But is this really justice?

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Anti-death penalty forces have gained momentum in the past few years, with a moratorium in Illinois, court disputes over lethal injection in more than a half-dozen states and progress toward outright abolishment in New Jersey.
The steady drumbeat of DNA exonerations - pointing out flaws in the justice system - has weighed against capital punishment. The moral opposition is loud, too, echoed in Europe and the rest of the industrialized world, where all but a few countries banned executions years ago.

What gets little notice, however, is a series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument - whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes. They count between three and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer.

The reports have horrified death penalty opponents and several scientists, who vigorously question the data and its implications.

So far, the studies have had little impact on public policy. New Jersey's commission on the death penalty this year dismissed the body of knowledge on deterrence as "inconclusive."

But the ferocious argument in academic circles could eventually spread to a wider audience, as it has in the past.

"Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it," said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. "The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect."

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. "The results are robust, they don't really go away," he said. "I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) - what am I going to do, hide them?"

Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers since 2001 that capital punishment has deterrent effects. They all explore the same basic theory - if the cost of something (be it the purchase of an apple or the act of killing someone) becomes too high, people will change their behavior (forego apples or shy away from murder).

To explore the question, they look at executions and homicides, by year and by state or county, trying to tease out the impact of the death penalty on homicides by accounting for other factors, such as unemployment data and per capita income, the probabilities of arrest and conviction, and more.

Among the conclusions:

Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).

The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to 150 additional homicides over four years following, according to a 2006 study by professors at the University of Houston.

Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.

In 2005, there were 16,692 cases of murder and non-negligent manslaughter nationally. There were 60 executions.
The studies' conclusions drew a philosophical response from a well-known liberal law professor, University of Chicago's Cass Sunstein. A critic of the death penalty, in 2005 he co-authored a paper titled "Is capital punishment morally required?"

"If it's the case that executing murderers prevents the execution of innocents by murderers, then the moral evaluation is not simple," he told The Associated Press. "Abolitionists or others, like me, who are skeptical about the death penalty haven't given adequate consideration to the possibility that innocent life is saved by the death penalty."

Sunstein said that moral questions aside, the data needs more study.

Critics of the findings have been vociferous.

Some claim that the pro-deterrent studies made profound mistakes in their methodology, so their results are untrustworthy. Another critic argues that the studies wrongly count all homicides, rather than just those homicides where a conviction could bring the death penalty. And several argue that there are simply too few executions each year in the United States to make a judgment.

"We just don't have enough data to say anything," said Justin Wolfers, an economist at the Wharton School of Business who last year co-authored a sweeping critique of several studies, and said they were "flimsy" and appeared in "second-tier journals."

"This isn't left vs. right. This is a nerdy statistician saying it's too hard to tell," Wolfers said. "Within the advocacy community and legal scholars who are not as statistically adept, they will tell you it's still an open question. Among the small number of economists at leading universities whose bread and butter is statistical analysis, the argument is finished."

Several authors of the pro-deterrent reports said they welcome criticism in the interests of science, but said their work is being attacked by opponents of capital punishment for their findings, not their flaws.

"Instead of people sitting down and saying 'let's see what the data shows,' it's people sitting down and saying 'let's show this is wrong,"' said Paul Rubin, an economist and co-author of an Emory University study. "Some scientists are out seeking the truth, and some of them have a position they would like to defend."

The latest arguments replay a 1970s debate that had an impact far beyond academic circles.

Then, economist Isaac Ehrlich had also concluded that executions deterred future crimes. His 1975 report was the subject of mainstream news articles and public debate, and was cited in papers before the U.S. Supreme Court arguing for a reversal of the top U.S. court's 1972 suspension of executions. (The court, in 1976, reinstated the death penalty.)

Ultimately, a panel was set up by the National Academy of Sciences which decided that Ehrlich's conclusions were flawed. But the new pro-deterrent studies have not gotten that kind of scrutiny.

At least not yet. The academic debate, and the larger national argument about the death penalty itself - with questions about racial and economic disparities in its implementation - shows no signs of fading away.

Steven Shavell, a professor of law and economics at Harvard Law School and co-editor-in-chief of the American Law and Economics Review, said in an e-mail exchange that his journal intends to publish several articles on the statistical studies on deterrence in an upcoming issue.

First published on June 11, 2007 / 7:24 AM

© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Death Penalty Deters Murders, Studies Say

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Anti-death penalty forces have gained momentum in the past few years, with a moratorium in Illinois, court disputes over lethal injection in more than a half-dozen states and progress toward outright abolishment in New Jersey.The steady drumbeat of DNA exonerations - pointing out flaws in the justice system - has weighed against capital punishment.

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Sept. 2016 Data

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Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
BRI Resources What is the Significance of the Free Exercise Clause? How has Speech Been Both Limited and Expanded, and How Does it Apply to You and Your School?
Amendment II

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
BRI Resources What are the Origins and Interpretations of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms?
Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
BRI Resources Liberty and Security in Modern Times
Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
BRI Resources How Does the Fifth Amendment Protect Property?
Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
BRI Resources Gideon v. Wainwright
Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
BRI Resources Due Process of Law
Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
BRI Resources How Do Due Process Protections for the Accused Protect Us All?
Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
BRI Resources What is the Scope of the Bill of Rights?
Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
BRI Resources State and Local Governments
Primary Source by James Madison, George Mason (1791)

The first 10 amendments to the Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. James Madison wrote the amendments, which list specific prohibitions on governmental power, in response to calls from several states for greater constitutional protection for individual liberties. For example, the Founders saw the ability to speak and worship freely as a natural right protected by the First Amendment. Congress is prohibited from making laws establishing religion or abridging freedom of speech. The Fourth Amendment safeguards citizens' right to be free from unreasonable government intrusion in their homes through the requirement of a warrant.

The Bill of Rights was strongly influenced by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason. Other precursors include English documents such as the Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the English Bill of Rights, and the Massachusetts Body of Liberties.

One of the many points of contention between Federalists, who advocated a strong national government, and Anti-Federalists, who wanted power to remain with state and local governments, was the Constitution's lack of a bill of rights that would place specific limits on government power. Federalists argued that the Constitution did not need a bill of rights, because the people and the states kept any powers not given to the federal government. Anti-Federalists held that a bill of rights was necessary to safeguard individual liberty.

Madison, then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, altered the Constitution's text where he thought appropriate. However, several representatives, led by Roger Sherman, objected, saying that Congress had no authority to change the wording of the Constitution. Therefore, Madison's changes were presented as a list of amendments that would follow Article VII.

The House approved 17 amendments. Of these, the Senate approved 12, which were sent to the states for approval in August 1789. Ten amendments were approved (or ratified). Virginia's legislature was the final state legislature to ratify the amendments, approving them on December 15, 1791.

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Bill of Rights (1791) - Bill of Rights Institute

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. - And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

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The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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3 Reasons to Get Rid of the Death Penalty

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3 Reasons to Get Rid of the Death Penalty

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2 Minute Video

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3 Reasons to Get Rid of the Death Penalty

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There are at least 10 executions scheduled to take place in the United States before the end of the year. Since the Supreme Court re-allowed executions in 1976, about 1,400 people have been executed.

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Video

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Bernie Sanders Vs. Hillary Clinton On The Death Penalty: Democratic Debate

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Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton may agree on a lot of things - the death penalty is not one of them. #DemDebate Subscribe for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV3Nm3T-XAgVhKH9jT0ViRg?sub_confirmation=1 Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish Download the AJ+ app at http://www.ajplus.net/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajplus

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.