L24 - L25 Capital Punishment

Question 1

Capital Punishment

Answer 1

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT – the death penalty. Determination of life as a Judicial Process.

CAPITAL OFFENSES – are offenses that qualify for CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

• In the US, Applies only to aggravated and felony murder.
• Can also apply to TREASON, through the last people executed for Treason were the Rosenbergs back in 1953 – accused of spying for the USSR.
• Capital punishment has been practiced by most societies over history.
  
  • However, in Modern times, it is limited to about 55 countries in practice.
  • 104 countries have abolished it.
  • The majority of Democratic Countries have abolished it over the past 60 years. The Exception is the USA and most of Asia.
  • Almost all totalitarian governments support the death penalty.
  • Capital offenses vary from country to country, including anything from treason to theft as well as Military: cowardice, desertion, insubordination, & mutiny.

Question 2

Capital Punishment in the US

Answer 2

• Executions in the US peaked around the Great Depression Late 20s-30s.
• Executions decreased dramatically through the 50s and 60s.
• No executions took place between 1967 - 1976 as the US Supreme Court effectively nullified the death penalty in 1972.
• 1976, the Supreme court found executions constitutional and so they resumed.
• Between 1976 - 2020, the US has executed 1,517 convicts.
• Top 5 states TX, VA, OK, FL, Missouri
• Since 2010 there have been decreasing death sentences, and in 2020 there are the fewest executions since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1976.
• Capital Punishment is Currently authorized in 28 states, the federal govt, and the military
• 3 of these 28 states have a moratorium on death sentences.

Question 3

Methods of Execution in U.S.

Answer 3

• Lethal Injection
  
  • The primary method in all states, US Military & Federal govt
• Electrocution
  
  • Permitted in 9 states
• Gas chamber
  
  • Permitted in 6 states
• Hanging
  
  • Permitted in 3 states
• Firing Squad
  
  • Permitted in 3 States

Question 4

Does the Death Penalty Deter Crime?

Answer 4

• Many people argue for Capital Punishment because they say it deters crime.
  
  • Cannot REJECT the NULL HYPOTHESIS – that there is statistical significance in the statistical research that suggests Capital Punishment deters crime.
  • There is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime.
  • It is more expensive to keep an inmate on death row (including the appeals process) than it is to keep them imprisoned indefinitely.
  • Billions are spent on capital punishment?
    
    • California said it cost them about $308 mio to execute each person.
  • On average, states WITH the death penalty have a HIGHER death rate than those WITHOUT the death penalty. Why?
    
    • Answer: Poverty
    • 88% of criminologists think capital punishment is NOT a deterrent.
    • 2/3 = 66% of the population do not support the death penalty.
      
      • When people run for office, they say they are going to be tough on crime – using our fears and emotions to get the vote.

Question 5

What interferes with Law Enforcement

Answer 5

• Police Cheifs ranked the “Insufficient use of the Death Penalty” as LAST among those things that interfere with law enforcement.
• The Bible Belt is blamed for ‘old Testament’ eye-for-an-eye – this is one reason why Capital Punishment still exists in the USA.

Question 6

Time on Death Row

Answer 6

• Typical death row inmate spends 10+ yrs waiting to be executed. Why? Two punishments = Solitary confinement for years + execution.
  
  • takes 12 years on average from conviction to execution
  • as many as 20 years
• Isolation in an impoverished environment can cause deterioration of mental status. Who cares?
• Cruel and unusual punishment? for someone who killed someone? what could be cruel and unusual punishment to such a person?

Question 7

Countries conducting the most Executions

Answer 7

• The US is always in the top 10 countries of death penalties
  
  • but not even in the same league as the top 4 or 5
  • China, Iran. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Somalia, USA, Singapore in that order.

Question 8

Capital Punishment (Disparities in Application)

Answer 8

• The Death Penalty is unpredictably applied to a very small number of defendants.
  
  • The penalty is applied inconsistently.
    
    • The most heinous murders are not punished by the death sentence, while lesser crimes are punished by death.
  • Ineffective guidelines – geography, race, and gender of defendant and victims. nature of the crime, culpability of the offender, access to adequate legal counsel, regional variation
    
    • So create a standard nationally.
  • 75% of cases involve White Victims even though blacks and whites are equally likely to be victims of murder.
• ​Whether or not a person is given the death penalty depends on where the crime was committed. But that is a result of a part of the constitution – states’ rights. That could be alleviated by creating a National law that makes capital punishment a possible punishment in each state.

Question 9

Jury and Racial Bias

Answer 9

• Jury selection is also discriminatory, which results in greater punishment of minorities.

Capital Jury Project studied 1,200+ jurors

• ​They found that the chances of receiving the death sentence in cases with a black defendant and a white victim increase when there are at least 5 white males on the jury.
• Found that constitutionally mandated jury guidelines are NOT working – Identified some basic constitutional problems

1. Premature decision-making
   
   • More than 50% of the jurors decided that the penalty for the defendant before the sentencing phase of the trial ever began – before they received instructions on how to make the punishment decision.
2. Jury selection bias (That’s what happens when you allow lawyers to choose the jury through voire dire) instead of a random selection.
   
   • Found that the jurors were guilt-prone and death-prone.
3. Juries were racially biased
   * Chances of receiving the death sentence in cases of a black defendant and a white victim INCREASE when there are at least 5 white males on the jury.
   * Chances of receiving the death penalty DECREASE when there is at least one black male on the jury.
   * Jurors have different perspectives on topics such as ‘lingering doubt’, defendant remorsefulness, and defendant future dangerousness.
   * Many times, jurors fail to understand the instructions or the appropriate circumstances as to when the death penalty is required.

Question 10

Race and Capital Punishment

Answer 10

2 factors influence the application of the death sentence:

1. Race of the defendant
2. Defendants who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks

• You are much more likely to receive a sentence of death if your victim is white.
  
  • 20 studies have come to this similar conclusion
• The race of the Defendant also matters
• If you are involved in a federal case, the jury is selected from a MUCH larger area surrounding the community in which the crime was committed.
  
  • This dilutes the community’s sensitivity (less
  • minority representation in the jury pool) to applying capital punishment, decreasing the likelihood that you will be tried by a jury of your peers from your home area where the crime occurred.
• Blacks, who account for 13% of the US population, account for about 50% of the inmates on Death Row. A disproportionate representation. Why?

Question 11

Gender Bias and Capital Punishment

Answer 11

• As of 2020, there are just 53 women on Death Row in the entire USA.
  • Only 16 women have been executed since 1976 – all of those within 8 southern states.
  • Difficult to draw conclusions about gender differences due to the low sample size of female death row inmates.
  • Thurgood Marshall said, when Capital Punishment was banned in 1972, that it was hard to understand why women have been favored.
    
    • And one reason he cited for striking down the death penalty was because it was not being applied equally to men and women.
  • The further a capital punishment case proceeds through the system, the MORE likely women are to be dropped out of the system.
• Women account for:
  
  • 10% Murder arrests
  • 2% Death sentences imposed at the trial level
  • 1.7% Death row inmates
  • 1 % Executions (modern era)
• In general, the death sentence rate and the death row population remains very small for women with a bias in the roots of chivalry.
• The Death Penalty is disproportionately imposed if you kill a WOMAN – about 7 times the rate of when the victim is a male.
• This suggests that women sentenced to death are BREAKING gender norms – somehow perceived as being LESS FEMALE.

Question 12

Mental Disability and Capital Punishment

Answer 12

• U.S. 1984 -2001
  
  • 44 mentally disabled persons were executed
• 2002 Supreme Court Atkins v. Virginia
  
  • That Executing those with intellectual disabilities (Mental Retardation) was unconstitutional
• But the states get to define who is “intellectually disabled”
• The U.S. Supreme Court has NOT barred the death penalty for those with Mental Illness (different from Intellectual Disability).

Question 13

Legal Representation and Capital Punishment

Answer 13

“People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty… I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial.” – US Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

• Escape from Capital Punishment runs along Socio-Economic Lines – if you can afford good representation, you don’t get sentenced to death.
• So Death Penalty distribution is considered ARBITRARY because inadequate representation is often the case with the poor.
• Public defenders do not do the job they are supposed to do and in many capital cases that were lost, the public defenders were often later disbarred, reprimanded, or worse due to unethical or criminal behavior.
• Death Penalty Representation in the south was more like a “Random flip” of the coin.
• If capital punishment can’t be applied consistently, it shouldn’t be applied at all.

Question 14

Witness Testimony and Innocence

Answer 14

Eyewitness Testimony is a problem in Capital cases (and other cases)

• Lawrence Adams – convicted in 1974 for a robbery and murder in 1972. He served 30 years in prison before being released in 2004.
  
  • His case was dismissed because the police withheld evidence that suggested this was an innocent man.
  • Convicted at 19 based on two eyewitnesses, which were total BS.

Question 15

Imperfect System

Answer 15

Since 1989 there have been

• 2603 cases in which a person was wrongly convicted of a crime and later cleared of all the charges based on new evidence of innocence
• At least 367 people in 37 states (& DC) exonerated through the use of DNA evidence