1. Chapter Twenty The Death Penalty

2. Learning Objective
Contrast the issues in the debate over capital punishment.
Understand the history of the death penalty in America.
Discuss the legal issues that surround the death penalty.
Characterize the inmates on death row.
Speculate about the future of capital punishment.

3. Learning Objective 1
Contrast the issues in the debate over capital punishment.

4. Debate
Support:
Murder must forfeit the murderer’s life if there is to be justice (moral)
Executions of wrongdoers deter others from committing the crime (utilitarian)
Death penalty serves justice by paying back killers for their horrible crimes
Victims’ families can be reassured that the murderer received a just punishment
Prevents murderers from doing further harm
Death penalty less expensive than life in prison

5. Debate Opposition: Mistakes can and have been made
Discriminates against poor people and racial minorities
No deterrent effect of the penalty
Wrong for government to participate in intentional killing

6. Discussion questions
Is it worth risking the life of an innocence person to have the death penalty?
What are the problems with the appeals process for offenders sentenced to death?

7. Video: dead man talking

8. Learning Objective 2
Understand the history of the death penalty in America.

9. Death Penalty in America
Executions carried out in public until 1830s
Last public execution in Kentucky– August 14, 1936, 20,000 spectators
Between : 3,859 executions
Average: 128 per year in 1940s
72 in the 50s
19 in the 60s
June 1977-June 2009: 1,125 executions

10. Figure 20.2 people executed in the united states

11. Death Penalty in America
Support for capital punishment fails when other options are present
111 death sentences pronounced in 2009
Almost 3,300 are waiting on death row
Since 1976 executions have never exceeded 98 in any one year
Important issues are whether or not the punishment is administered fairly, and what should be done about those who are wrongly convicted

12. Learning Objective 3
Discuss the legal issues that surround the death penalty.

13. Discussion questions
Why should we be concerned about possible pain an offender being put to death may experience?
Does it matter if an offender experiences pain when being put to death?

14. Video: death penalty legal issues

15. Legal Issues Furman v. Georgia (1972): Gregg v. Georgia (1976):
Death penalty was itself not unconstitutional, but the way it was administered constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
Gregg v. Georgia (1976):
Upheld laws that required the sentencing judge or jury to take into account specific aggravating and mitigating factors in deciding which convicted murderers should be sentenced to death.

16. Legal Issues McCleskey v. Kemp (1987): Atkins v. Virginia (2002):
Court rejected a challenge, on the grounds of racial discrimination, to Georgia’s death penalty law.
Atkins v. Virginia (2002):
Execution of the mentally retarded was unconstitutional.
Ring v. Arizona (2002):
Juries, rather than judges, must make the crucial factual decisions as to whether a convicted murderer should receive the death penalty.

17. Legal Issues Roper v. Simmons (2005): Strickland v. Washington (1984):
Offenders cannot be sentenced to death for crimes they committed before they reached the age of 18.
Strickland v. Washington (1984):
Defendants in capital cases have the right to representation that meets an “objective standard of reasonableness.”

18. Legal Issues Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968): Uttecht v. Brown (2007):
Potential jurors who have general objections to the death penalty or whose religious convictions oppose its use cannot be automatically excluded from jury service in capital cases.
Uttecht v. Brown (2007):
Enhanced state’s ability to remove potential jurors with doubts about the death penalty

19. Legal Issues Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008): Coker v. Georgia (1977):
Capital sentence where the crime did not involve murder was in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments.
Coker v. Georgia (1977):
Use of death penalty for rape of an adult was unconstitutional.
Medellin v. Texas (2008)
President did not have the power to order states to follow the Vienna Convention.

20. Other Pertinent Legal Issues
What to do about executing the mentally ill?
What to do if a defendant does not have a competent legal counsel?
Should individuals who are anti-death penalty be excluded from capital cases (death qualified juries)?
Also Issues of Child Rape, Appeals and International Law need to be considered.
Supreme Court Cases have been argued regarding many of these issues, but they are still important to keep in mind.

21. Learning Objective 4
Characterize the inmates on death row.

22. Figure 20.4 characteristics of death row inmates

23. Death Row Inmates Poorly educated men from low-income backgrounds
65% have prior felony convictions
8.6% have prior homicide convictions
29.8% were on probation, parole, or in prison
Only 58 women, only 11 have been executed since 1976, despite 1 in 7 murderers being women.

24. Death Row Inmates Where:
54% in south
2.5% in West
14% in Midwest
7% from Northeastern states
65% of executions carried out in 5 states ):
Texas (439)
Virginia (103)
Oklahoma (90)
Missouri (67)
Florida (67)

25. Other Death Row Issues
Number of inmates sentenced to death also depends on the identity of the prosecutor.
Race is also a factor.
Major debate exists on the issue of who is on death row and how to properly deal with the death penalty.

26. Discussion Questions What do you think of the Tookie Williams case?
Is it fair for someone who has reformed themselves in prison to still be sentenced to death?
Do you think the outcome of Tookie’s case would have been different had he been white?

27. Video: tookie williams

28. Learning Objective 5
Speculate about the future of capital punishment.

29. The Future Innocent death row inmates
Decrease in the number of death sentences
States abolishing death penalty
Issues with budgeting
Racial Disparities
The above issues are all hotly contested ones which will influence death row policy in the future