© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill CHAPTERCHAPTER FIFTEENFIFTEEN

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill DEATH: The Ultimate Sanction Photo © Corbis, used with permission.

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill DEFINITIONSDEFINITIONS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: Lawful imposition of the death penalty. CAPITAL CRIME: A crime for which the death penalty may, but not necessarily will, be imposed. CLEMENCY: Kindness, mercy, forgiveness, or leniency, usually relating to criminal acts. COMMUTATION: A change of a legal penalty to a lesser one; e.g., from death to life imprisonment.

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill A BRIEF HISTORY A BRIEF HISTORY Throughout history, capital punishment has commonly been used as a penalty for criminal behavior. Until the Age of Enlightenment in the 18 th century, death was meted out for crimes as minor as forgery or the theft of a chicken.

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill A BRIEF HISTORY A BRIEF HISTORY The Enlightenment led to new theories on crime and punishment. One put forth the notion that punishment ought to fit the particular crime for which it is applied. As this new perspective took hold, public support for both capital and corporal punishment, especially torture, dramatically diminished. © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill A BRIEF HISTORY A BRIEF HISTORY Some states banned or limited capital punishment in the early 20 th century. The banning trend reversed in the face of socialist challenges to capitalism following World War I, in part to deter threats of revolution. Public support for capital punishment faded again during the post-World War II prosperity of the 1950s. © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill A BRIEF HISTORY A BRIEF HISTORY The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Furman v. Georgia (1972) voided the death penalty statutes in forty states. Revised death statutes that removed arbitrariness by the creation of a two-step trial process won the Court’s approval in Gregg v. Georgia (1976).

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill THE WORLD’S STANCE As of August 2002, the death penalty had been abolished in law or practice in 111 countries. It is still used in 84 countries, including the United States.

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill STATES WITH DEATH PENALTY STATUTES

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill CAPITAL PUNISHMENT in the U.S. Today, 38 states, the military, and the federal government allow capital punishment. Twelve states do not. From the 1600s and continuing through 2003, over 15,000 U.S. executions have been confirmed.

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill CAPITAL PUNISHMENT in the U.S. The U.S. Constitution does not mention the death penalty, but does permit depriving citizens of life after giving due process. Since 1927, the federal government has executed 37 people. Title VI of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994) is the Federal Death Penalty Act.

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill CATEGORY PERCENTAGE Male 99 Female 1 White 46 Black 42 Hispanic 10 Other 2 DEATH SENTENCE INMATES: SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS Gender Race

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill The methods of execution used in the U.S. are:  Lethal injection  Electrocution  Lethal gas  Hanging  Firing squad METHODS OF EXECUTION © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Death Row, a prison area housing inmates who have been sentenced to death, is a prison within a prison. All but two death penalty states segregate death row inmates from the general prison population. Most death row inmates spend 22 to 23 hours per day locked down in a five-by-eight- or six-by-nine-foot cell. DEATH ROW © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Death row cells are typically equipped with steel bunks, toilets, and sinks bolted to concrete floors and cinder- block walls. The centerpiece of a death inmate’s cell is the television, which fills the inmate’s time and gives the inmate a view of the world he or she has lost. DEATH ROW © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Americans are closely divided on the appropriate punishment for convicted murderers. When given a choice, 49 percent chose the death penalty, and 45 percent chose life without parole. The number of convicted offenders sentenced to die has dropped 57 percent since POLITICS and DEATH © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill An ABC News/Washington Post poll in January 2003 revealed that 39 percent would like to see a blanket commutation of death sentences by their governor similar to that issued recently by the former governor of Illinois. Opposition to such action was 58%. POLITICS and DEATH

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill DEFINITIONSDEFINITIONS MANDATORY DEATH PENALTY: A death sentence that the legislature has required to be imposed upon people convicted of certain offenses. GUIDED DISCRETION: Decision making bounded by general guidelines, rules, or laws. BIFURCATED TRIAL: Two separated hearings for different issues in a trial, one for guilt and the other for punishment.

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill DEFINITIONSDEFINITIONS MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES: Factors that, although not justifying or excusing an action, may reduce the culpability of the offender. AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCES: Factors that may increase the culpability of the offender. SERIOUS ERROR: Error that substantially undermines the reliability of the guilt finding or death sentence imposed at trial.

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Furman v. Georgia (1972) voided all death penalty statutes because they allowed arbitrary and discriminatory imposition of the death sentence. The states responded by rewriting the statutes. Some devised mandatory death penalties for certain crimes, while others opted for guided discretion that set standards to guide judges and juries. THE COURTS and DEATH

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Two 1976 rulings, Woodson v. North Carolina and Roberts v. Louisiana, rejected mandatory death penalty statutes. Guided discretion statutes received the U.S. Supreme Court’s approval in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) and two companion cases. Gregg also approved automatic appellate review, a proportionality review, and bifurcated (two-part) trials. THE COURTS and DEATH © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill The average time between imposition of a death sentence and execution of the offender is 10 years and 7 months. Death penalty cases may pass through as many as ten courts, across three stages: ○ trial and direct review; ○ state postconviction appeals; and ○ federal habeas corpus appeals. APPEALING DEATH

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Serious error is defined as error that substantially undermines the reliability of the guilt finding or the death sentence imposed at trial. Nationally, the rate of serious error discovered on direct review of death penalty cases by state appellate courts is 41 percent. APPEALING DEATH

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Second stage reviews (state post- conviction appeals) detect serious error in 10 percent of the capital cases reviewed. Despite extensive state-level appellate review, federal courts still find serious error in 40 percent of the capital cases they review. APPEALING DEATH

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill At the behest of the U. S. Senate, Columbia University law professor James Liebman studied 4,578 death penalty appeals submitted between 1973 and In part, he found:  The overall rate of prejudicial error in the U.S. capital punishment system is 68 percent. THE LIEBMAN STUDY © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill  Serious flaws existed in more than two out of three capital cases reviewed by the courts.  The error rate in some states exceeded 75 percent.  Almost 1,000 retried cases ended in sentences less than death.  Retrials in 87 cases ended in verdicts of not guilty. THE LIEBMAN STUDY © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Professor Liebman offers two options for reducing serious capital error:  End the death penalty entirely; or  Limit the death penalty to only the small number of offenses on which there is broad social consensus that death is the only appropriate sentence. © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Since the first execution of a juvenile in 1642, the U.S. has put to death 365 people for offenses they committed as children. Twenty-two of those executions have taken place since 1976, in what is now the modern era of capital punishment. Currently, 82 death row inmates—about two percent of the total death row population—were sentenced as juveniles. JUVENILES and DEATH © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Today, 15 states and the federal govern- ment prohibit execution of offenders under the age of 18. In Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to execute a 15-year-old. Worldwide, only the United States and Iran continue to execute offenders who commit their crimes as juveniles. JUVENILES and DEATH

© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Atkins v. Virginia (2002) held the execution of the mentally retarded to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. In Atkins, the Court cited the development of a national consensus against such executions. Atkins also left it to the states to define mental retardation. THE MENTALLY RETARDED

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