Death Penalty in the USA

 

Capital Punishment or Death Penalty in the USA is a leagal sentence in 32 States  and the federal civilian and military legal systems

The methods of execution and the crimes subject to the death penalty vary by state and have changed over time

Capital punishment was suspended in the United States from 1972 through 1976 primarily as a result of the Supreme Court's decision in Furman Vs Georgia

In this case, the court found that the death penalty was being imposed in an unconstitutional manner, on the grounds of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution 

The Supreme Court has never ruled the death penalty to be per se unconstitutional.

In Furman Vs Georgia, the SC considered a group of consolidated cases. The lead case involved an individual convicted under Georgia's death penalty statute, which featured a "unitary trial" procedure in which the jury was asked to return a verdict of guilt or innocence and, simultaneously, determine whether the defendant would be punished by death or life imprisonment.
In a five-to-four decision, the Supreme Court struck down the impositions of the death penalty in each of the consolidated cases as unconstitutional. The five justices in the majority did not produce a common opinion or rationale for their decision, however, and agreed only on a short statement announcing the result.

Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, 34 States have performed executions.

The most common method since 1976 has been Lethal Injection

 

Usage of lethal injection for executions in the United States
Color key:

  State uses only this method

  State uses this method primarily but has secondary methods

  State has never used this method

  State once used this method, but no longer does

The use of lethal injection has become standard. The last executions by other methods are as follows:

Method	Date	State	Convict
Electrocution	Jan 16, 2013	Virginia	Robert Gleason
Firing squad	Jun 18, 2010	Utah	Ronnie Lee Gardner
Lethal gas	Mar 3, 1999	Arizona	Walter LaGrand
Hanging	Jan 25, 1996	Delaware	William Bailey

 The District of Columbia and the following 18 states currently do not have an enforceable death penalty statute

State	Abolition Date
Alaska	1957
Connecticut	2012
Hawaii	1957
Illinois	2011
Iowa	1965
Maine	1887
Maryland	2013
Massachusetts	1984
Michigan	1846
Minnesota	1911
New Jersey	2007
New Mexico	2009
New York	2007
North Dakota	1973
Rhode Island	1984
Vermont	1964
West Virginia	1965
Wisconsin	1853

The United States territory of Puerto Rico has no death penalty. Puerto Rico instituted a four-year moratorium on the death penalty in 1917. The last execution took place in 1927, and the Puerto Rican Legislature abolished the death penalty in 1929

The SC has placed two major restrictions on the use of the death penalty

First, the case of Atkins Vs Virginia, decided on June 20, 2002,held that the execution of mentally retarded inmates is '' cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eightth Amendment Generally, a person with an IQ below 70 is considered to be mentally retarded. Prior to this decision, between 1984 and 2002, forty-four mentally retarded inmates had been executed in the USA


Second, in 2005, the SC's decision in Roper Vs Simmons abolished executions for persons under the age of 18 at the time of the crime