Death Penalty

Abstract

The controversies over capital punishment in the United States grow more heated each year, but there is very little discourse by public intellectuals on the meaning and legitimacy of death as a criminal punishment. Over the past three decades, the United States has embraced the death penalty with tenacious enthusiasm. While most countries whose legal systems and cultures are normally compared to the United States have abolished capital punishment, the United States continues to employ this ultimate tool of punishment. The death penalty has achieved an unparalleled prominence in our public life and left an indelible imprint on our politics and culture. At various times the death penalty has been portrayed as an anachronism, an inheritance, or an innovation, with little reflection on the consequences that flow from the choice of words.

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the inflicting of death upon a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offence. Usually a person receives the death penalty for committing a capital crime or capital offence. Capital punishment has in the past been practiced in virtually every society, although currently only 58 nations actively practice it, with 95 countries having abolished it. Since 1977, over 1,200 people have been executed in the U.S.; there are currently around 3,300 men and women on death row across the country. As of October 2009, capital punishment in the US is officially sanctioned by 34 states, as well as by the federal government. Each state with legalized capital punishment has different laws regarding its methods, age limits and crimes which qualify. Since 1976 the state of Texas has executed a total of 442 people; far way the most of any state in the United States. Arguments that are commonly made for supporting the death penalty are: to serve as example to other would-be criminals, to deter them from committing murder or terrorist acts, to punish...