Capital punishment - The death penalty

Quotations and overview

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Quotations:

	"People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty ... I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court.
	"Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years with time off for good behavior?" NY State Senator James Donovan, speaking in support of capital punishment.
	"He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus Christ) interrupting a public execution of a woman for adultery. John 8:7, (NKJ)
	"Sometimes you just have the thin the herd." Dennis Miller
	"Does it make sense for the state to hire contract murderers to kill defenseless victims on death row, in order to prove that hiring murderers to kill defenseless victims is morally wrong?" Anon.
	"There are plenty of innocent people being killed by those on parole...The only cure for this kind of "sickness" is death. I know I may sound hard and cruel- but I for one, have had enough!" Posting to a feedback forum, Detroit News, 1999-MAR-2.
	"Barbarians. That's what we have become. We kill each other and instead of mourning the tragedy, we want the state to satisfy our bloodlust by killing the offender...we must learn to deal with these people in our midst - punish them, but do not become them." Another posting to the same feedback forum, 1999-MAR-2
	"As I read the New Testament, I don't see anywhere in there that killing bad people is a very high calling for Christians. I see an awful lot about redemption and forgiveness." James W.L. Park, former execution officer, San Quentin, California.
	"The death penalty is a poor person's issue. Always remember that: after all the rhetoric that goes on in the legislative assemblies, in the end, when the deck is cast out, it is the poor who are selected to die in this country." Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J.
	"I like it the way it is." Comment by Governor George W. Bush of Texas at the time that a law prohibiting execution of the mentally disadvantaged was defeated.
	"We oppose the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of heinous crimes, but for what it does to all of us:  it offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life." -- Most Rev. Joseph A. Fiorenza, President, National Conference of Catholic Bishops / U.S. Catholic Conference, 1999.
	"...in Canada, the death penalty has been rejected as an acceptable element of criminal justice. Capital punishment engages the underlying values of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. It is final and irreversible. Its imposition has been described as arbitrary and its deterrent value has been doubted." Supreme Court of Canada, "United States v. Burns," 2001-FEB-15.
	"I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don't think it's human to become an agent of the Angel of Death." Elie Wiesel

Overview:

The word "capital" in "capital punishment" refers to a person's head. In the past, people were often executed by severing their head from their body. Today, in the U.S., prisoners on death row are generally executed by lethal injection.

The United States is one of the very few industrialized countries in the world which continues to execute criminals. Further, it is one of a handful of countries in the world which executes mentally ill persons, persons with very low IQ, and child murderers (i.e. persons who were under 18 at the time of their crime).

It is mainly the Southern states which continue to execute people. During 2002:

	61 of the 71 executions were in Southern states.
	Outside the South, only three States (California, Ohio and Missouri) executed anyone.

Between 1976, when executions were resumed, until 2009-DEC-31, there have been 1,188 executions in the US. This includes:

	66 during 2001.
	71 in 2002.
	65 in 2003
	59 in 2004
	60 in 2005
	53  in 2006.
	42 in 2007
	37 in 2008.
	52 in 2009.

The recent fluctuation in the annual rate of executions appear to have been caused by a botched execution that persuaded many states to postpone their scheduled executions until problems could be ironed out.

The Death Penalty Information Center maintains a data base of executions that is searchable by name, year, age at execution, race, gender, state, region, method and other factors. ₅

By region from 1976 to 2009 inclusive:

	981 have been executed in the South;
	136 in the Mid-west
	67 in the West
	4 in the Northeast.

This is in spite of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which is supposed to guarantee equal treatment for citizens.

About two out of three executions are conducted in only five states: Texas, Virginia, Missouri, Florida and Oklahoma. Texas leads the other states in number of killings. During 2008, they killed 19 prisoners; during 2009, the number increased to 24. From 1976 to 2009 inclusive, Texas has executed 447 people, Virginia 105 and the remaining states of the U.S. have executed fewer than 69 each.

102 have been exonerated and freed since 1973, mainly after having been proven innocent by DNA evidence.

In spite of the slight increase in U.S. executions between 2001 and 2002, the number of new death sentences decreased significantly. The Washington Post commented in late 2002 that "outside of a few states, the death penalty remains in decline....a few states account for the overwhelming majority of all executions. The more isolated they become, the greater the pressure for reform will be."

Some convicts have been able to have the evidence used against them reexamined using DNA analysis. By 2000-JAN, tests had proven that 13 inmates on Illinois' death row were innocent. Governor G.H. Ryan announced a moratorium on executions in that state until after an administration review of the death penalty.

Scholastic Update reported in 2007-FEB:

"Last year [2006], executions were at least temporarily halted in eight states-Florida, California, Maryland, Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri, Ohio, and South Dakota-over concerns that supposedly humane lethal injections might actually produce intense pain. And in [2007] January, a commission appointed by the New Jersey Legislature recommended that the state abolish the death penalty. The commission found 'no compelling evidence' that capital punishment serves a legitimate purpose and increasing evidence that it 'is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency'." ₃

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Public support:

When asked whether they prefer to keep or abolish the death penalty, various surveys have shown that about 60 to 80% of American adults say that they want to retain capital punishment. Numbers vary depending upon the precise wording of the question asked by the pollsters.

However, when they are asked whether they would like to see executions continue or have them replaced with a system that guaranteed:

	life imprisonment with no hope for parole, ever, and
	that the inmate would work in the prison to earn money, and
	that the money would be directed to helping the family of the person(s) that they killed,

About 55 to 60% of Americans prefer the latter system.  Unfortunately for those on death row, nobody seems to be listening.

References used:

1. "Worth repeating: The year on America's death row," Toronto Star, Toronto, Canada, 2003-JAN-1, editorial page. Edited excerpt from an editorial in the Washington Post: "The Year in Death," 2002-DEC-30, Page A16, Section B.
2. "The Death Penalty in 2002: Year End Report," The Death Penalty Information Center, at: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/yrendrpt02.pdf  You need software to read these files. It can be obtained free from:
3. Adam Laptak, "The Death Penalty Debate," Scholstic Update, 2007-FEB-05, at: http://www.romingerlegal.com/
4. "Number of executions by state and region since 1976," Death Penalty Information Center, at: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
5. "Cardinal's gay slur prompts Vatican rap," Sydney Morning Herald, 2009-DEC-04, at: http://www.smh.com.au/
6. "Searchable execution database," Death Penalty Information Center, at: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

Copyright © 1995 to 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally published: 1995-JUN-8
Last updated 2009-DEC-31
Author: Bruce A Robinson

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