THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE US

In the US, the death penalty is sometimes given to people who are found guilty of committing very serious crimes. These crimes could include first-degree1 murder and treason, or betraying² one's country. Capital punishment was brought to America by early settlers from Europe. In early America, people who were found guilty of murder and rape were routinely³ executed, either by hanging or by a firing squad. Convicted burglars, thieves, and even counterfeiters⁴ often received the death penalty. This was thought to be a deterrents5 to other criminals.

Over time, people began to feel that criminals were not evil. Instead, they were victims of poverty, poor education, and lack of opportunity. Society should focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment, they thought. Another reason for the change in thinking was economic. Prisons were very expensive. Early American states could not afford to keep many criminals behind bars. Rather than keep them in prison, they executed convicted criminals. But as society became richer during the Industrial Revolution, prisons became more affordable to maintain. For this and other reasons, keeping criminals in prison rather than executing them became a viable⁶ option.

By the mid-1800s, many states had banned the death penalty except in the case of convicted murderers. Those states were mostly in the northeastern part of the country, while the southern and western states kept the death penalty for many crimes. Even today, most executions happen in the southern and western states. These states are, in general, more politically conservative⁷ than northeastern ones, and conservatives are more likely to support capital punishment. In states with capital punishment, death by injection is the standard form of execution. It is considered the most humane way to carry out the sentence.

In the last few years in America, the debate over the death penalty has grown more intense. A powerful argument against the death penalty is that some of the people who are found guilty and sentenced to die are not actually guilty. New methods of verifying⁸ evidence, such as DNA testing, have helped free many death-row⁹ inmates. Because, in many cases, criminals cannot be proven one hundred percent guilty, it is not right to sentence them to death, opponents say. There is a chance that they may be innocent. The government of Illinois, one of the biggest states by population, abolished¹⁰ capital punishment in 2011 largely for this reason. Then in 2021, Virginia became the nation's first southern state to abolish the death penalty. The governor described this action as "the moral thing to do."

Another argument against the death penalty is pragmatic rather than philosophical - the high cost of executing a prisoner. Nowadays, anyone sentenced to die has the right to appeal¹¹ the sentence several times. The state has to defend its case each time before a higher court. One study found that it costs the state more than $1 million in legal expenses for a prisoner to use up all appeals against the death penalty.

The US remains in heated debate over capital punishment, but there is evidence that public opinion is turning against it. In 2019, for the first time, a majority of Americans (fifty-six percent) said they preferred life in prison over death as punishment for murder. If current trends continue, more states may be following Virginia's lead. The death penalty could soon be a thing of the past.

• execution
• philosophical
• politically
• injection
• pragmatic
• rehabilitation

The Mentally Challenged and the Death Penalty

Mentally challenged people have IQs of below seventy. Many mentally challenged people with IQs of fifty-five and above hold jobs, have children, and do many things that people with normal IQs do. They also commit murder and other crimes. When mentally challenged people commit crimes and are convicted, is it fair to put them to death, as other criminals are sentenced to death? This is a question that the American people and their courts have struggled with for many years. However, in recent years, it seems that the majority of Americans have come closer to agreement on the issue. Most people now think that putting mentally challenged people to death is "cruel and unusual punishment," which is forbidden by the US Constitution.

Daryl Atkins had an IQ of fifty-nine. In the late 1990s, Atkins was found guilty of murder and was given the death penalty in Virginia. His case was appealed all the way up to the US Supreme Court. In 2002, the court ruled that Atkins and other mentally challenged persons may not receive the death penalty. This decision opposed a 1989 Supreme Court decision that said mentally challenged persons could be executed. Since 1976, approximately thirty-five mentally challenged people had been executed in the US.

In the 2002 decision, the court said that the nation had come to a consensus against executing the mentally challenged. They said it is unfair to execute someone who cannot fully understand how bad their actions were.