1. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Chapter 15 Death: The Ultimate Sanction 1

2. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 2

3. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 3

4. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 4

5. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Capital Punishment Worldwide  In 2005, there were at least 2,148 executions in 22 countries.  China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. were responsible for 94% of these known executions.  As of March 2007, the death penalty had been abolished in law or practice in 123 countries.  It is still used in 73 countries, including the United States. 5

6. © 2009 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 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. 6

7. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 7

8. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 8

9. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Federal Death Row  United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, Indiana.  Special Confinement Unit (SCU)  On June 15, 2007, 53 people were on federal death row. 9

10. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Executions  As of June 15, 2007, 1,079 people have been executed in the U.S. since Gary Gilmore’s execution in 1977.  37% of all executions have taken place in Texas.  The South leads the U.S. in executions. 10

11. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Characteristics of Death Row Inmates  On January 1, 2007, 3,350 persons were under a sentence of death in the U.S.  43% of the nation’s death row population is in California (660), and Florida (397), and Texas (393).  Inmates executed in 2005 had been on death row an average of 12 years and 3 months.  Between 1973 and 2005, 327 people on death row died, 2,702 had their convictions or sentences overturned, and 341 were granted clemency. 11

12. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Methods of Execution  Lethal injection  Predominant method in U.S.  Used in 37 states.  Charles Brooks was first to be executed by lethal injection.  Electrocution  Nebraska is only state that uses the electric chair as its sole method of execution.  Lethal gas  Hanging  Firing squad  Repealed in Utah on March 15, 2004. 12

13. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 13

14. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Public Opinion and Death  69% of the public still favors capital punishment, up from 64% in 2000.  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. 14

15. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 15

16. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 16

17. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Courts and the Death Penalty Mandatory 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. 17

18. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Courts and the Death Penalty Gregg 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. 18

19. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 19

20. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 20

21. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill Appealing Death – Continued  Death penalty cases may pass through as many as ten courts, across three stages:  trial and direct review;  state post-conviction appeals; and  federal habeas corpus appeals.  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. 21

22. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 22

23. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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.  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. 23

24. © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill 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. 24