Chapter 15

Death:The Ultimate Sanction

McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.

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A Brief History of Capital Punishment

Throughout history, capital punishment has commonly been used as a penalty for criminal behavior.

Until the Age of Enlightenment in the18th century, death was meted out for crimes as minor as forgery or the theft of a chicken.

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.

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A Brief History of Capital Punishment – Continued

Some states banned or limited capital punishment in the early 20th century.

U.S. v. Jackson (1968) – held that the provision of the federal kidnapping statute that required the death penalty to be imposed only upon the recommendation by a jury was unconstitutional.

Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968) – a potential juror’s mere reservations about the death penalty were insufficient to prevent that person from serving on the jury in a death penalty case.

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A Brief History of Capital Punishment – Continued

Furman v. Georgia (1972) – declared the death penalty, as it was applied, was unconstitutional As a result the court voided 40 death

penalty statutes Gregg v. Georgia (1976) – upheld the

guided discretionary capital statutes Created a bifurcated trial process

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Capital Punishment Worldwide

As of March of 2010, the death penalty had been abolished in law or practice in 139 countries. 58 countries still use the death penalty.

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Capital Punishment Worldwide

In 2010, Amnesty International documented 527 executions in 23 countries, but the total did not include figures from China, which executes more people than the rest of the world combined. The five countries that reported the most executions in 2009 were Iran (252), North Korea (60), Yemen (53), United States (46), and Saudi Arabia (27).

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Capital Punishment in the U.S.

Today, 34 states, the military, and the federal government allow capital punishment.

Sixteen states do not allow capital punishment.

The first person to be executed in the U.S. after the moratorium ended on the death penalty was Gary Gilmore by a Utah firing squad on January 17, 1977.

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Federal Death Penalty

The U.S. Constitution does not mention the death penalty, but it does permit depriving citizens of life after giving due process.

The first federal execution was of Thomas Bird on June 25, 1790 when he was hanged in Maine for the crime of murder.

Since 1790, the federal government has executed 336 men and 4 women. 39% were white; 35% were black; 19% were

Native American; and 7% were Hispanic or other

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Federal Death Penalty Act and the Right to Counsel

A minimum of two lawyers should be appointed to represent federal capital defendants.

At least one of the two lawyers must have experience in capital work.

The federal court must consider the Federal Public Defender’s recommendation regarding which counsel are qualified for appointment in capital cases.

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Federal Death Row United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute,

Indiana Special Confinement Unit (SCU)

On March 10, 2011, 60 people were on federal death row.

The last three federal executions were: Timothy McVeigh, executed June 11, 2001.• Juan Raul Garza, executed June 19, 2001 .• Louis Jones Jr., executed March 18, 2003.

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•Executions

Since the death penalty began again in 1977, 1,242 people have been executed. Thirty-eight percent of the executions have taken place in Texas. The South leads the U.S. in executions.

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Characteristics of Death Row Inmates

Today, 3,261 people were under sentence of death in the United States. Most are in California (697), Florida (398), and Texas (337). In 2008, there were 111 death sentences issued, the fewest since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

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Methods of Execution Lethal injection

Predominant method in U.S Used in 37 states First adopted in 1977 by Oklahoma

Electrocution Lethal gas Hanging Firing squad The Federal Government authorizes both

lethal injection or whichever method is in use in the convicting state.

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Death Row

A prison area housing inmates who have been sentenced to death A prison within a prison

All but two death penalty states (Missouri and Tennessee) 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

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Public Opinion and Death

Public still favors capital punishment. Support for the death penalty drops when

other punishment options, such as life without the possibility of parole are given.

People with higher incomes are more likely to support capital punishment than people with lower incomes.

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Continued

According to the Gallup Poll, public support for capital punishment in the United States was at its lowest in 1966 when only 42 percent of Americans supported it. It reached its highest level (80 percent) in 1994.

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Politics and Death In January 2003, Illinois Governor

George Ryan commuted 164 death sentences to life in prison, commuted three other death row inmates’ sentences to 40 years in prison, and pardoned four other death row inmates because of mounting evidence that the death penalty was not being applied fairly in Illinois.

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Courts and the Death Penalty Furman v. Georgia (1972)

The death penalty, as imposed and carried out under the laws of Georgia, was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments

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

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Courts and the Death PenaltyMandatory Death Penalty

A death sentence that the legislature has required to be imposed upon people convicted of certain offenses.

Woodson v. North Carolina and Roberts v. Louisiana (1976) rejected mandatory death penalty statutes.

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Courts and the Death PenaltyGregg v. Georgia (1976)

Approved guided discretion statutes Mandated a bifurcated trial process

The first part is the guilt phase, in which the jury decides the issue of guilt

The second part is the penalty phase, in which the prosecution presents aggravating factors and the defense present mitigating factors and a jury decides which punishment to impose

Approved automatic appellate review

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Key Terminology 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

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

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Appealing Death

The average time between imposition of a death sentence and execution of the offender is 11 years

Serious error – error that substantially undermines the reliability of the guilt finding or death sentence imposed at trial

Nationally, for every 100 death sentences imposed, 41 were turned back at the trial and direct review phase because of serious error

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Appealing Death – Continued

Death penalty cases may pass through as many as 10 courts across three stages: trial and direct review, state postconviction appeals, and federal habeas corpus appeals

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Appealing Death – Continued

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

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The Liebman Study

The overall rate of prejudicial error in the U.S. capital punishment system is 68%

Serious flaws existed in more than two out of three capital cases reviewed by the courts

The error rate in some states exceeded 75% Almost 1,000 retried cases ended in

sentences less than death Retrials in 87 cases ended in verdicts of not

guilty

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Juveniles and the Death Penalty

The first juvenile executed was Thomas Graunger in 1642 when he was hanged in Massachusetts for buggery. He was sixteen.

The U.S. has put to death 365 people for offenses they committed as children. From 1976 to March 2, 2005, 22 people

were executed for crimes they committed as juveniles.

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Juveniles and the Death Penalty

In Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), the Court held that it is unconstitutional to execute a 15-year-old.

In Roper v. Simmons (2005) the Court held that it is unconstitutional to execute anyone for a crime they committed before turning age 18.

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Juveniles and the Death Penalty

Justices cited scientific literature from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association showing that adolescents lack mature judgment, are less aware of the consequences of their decisions and actions, are more vulnerable than adults to peer pressure, and have a greater tendency toward impulsiveness and lesser reasoning skills, regardless of how big they are or how tough they talk

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The Mentally Retarded and Death

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. The Court cited the development of a national

consensus against such executions. Atkins also left it to the states to define

mental retardation.