Capital Punishment

1. Capital Punishment POL 306 April 19, 2011 Dr. Inscho Anthony Staup, Shannon Sawyer, Amy Ruehl, Keith Conti, Katlyn Lopus, William Bair

2. Capital Punishment, Defined. • “legally authorized killing of someone as punishment for a crime” • It gets hazy at this point because how is one convicted person chosen the death penalty over others?

3. Cont. • “the decision that capital punishment may be the appropriate sanction in extreme cases is an expression of the community's belief that certain crimes are themselves so grievous an affront to humanity that the only adequate response may be the penalty of death." ~Supreme Court of the United States of America

4. States for and Against Capital Punishment

5. Current Forms of Capital Punishment • Firing Squad • Hanging • Lethal Gas • Lethal Injection • Electric Chair

6. Current Major Issues • Cost • Innocence • Not a deterrent • Public Opinion

7. History of the Policy • European settlers took with them the ideals of Great Britain • Deeply rooted in American and world culture

8. Policy • Is it humane? • Furman vs. Georgia 1972 • New policy formed

9. Policy • State Mandated • Federal crimes are an exception • 35 with Death Penalty • 15Without

10. States with and without Death Penalty

11. Ever-changing Process • Illinois • Abolished the death Penalty • West Virginia • A bill was introduced to reinstate the death penalty (defeated) • Utah • Limiting # of Appeals

12. Federal Government • Certain Crimes fall under capital punishment • Supreme Court • Federal Issue can overrule state law

13. State Government • 35 of 50 states have death penalty • States have more impact on death penalty laws • States Enforcement

14. Non-Governmental Actors • Amnesty International • Started by British lawyer Peter Benenson • Began campaigning for human rights in 1961 • Comprised of over 2.2 million members in 150 countries. • Tactics used: • Direct lobbying. • Public demonstrations. • Targeted appeals. • Human rights education. • Death to the death penalty

15. Cont. • Justice for All • "If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call." ~~John McAdams - Marquette University/Department of Political Science, on deterrence

16. Cont. • Is an all volunteer, non-profit organization. • Created in order to push for justice and to promote victims rights. • Tactics used: • Started projects to promote victim awareness, such as: • Website database. • Park memorial.

17. Current Policies are not Effective • Wrongly sentenced death • Due to unfair trials, unreliable evidence, and police misconduct • Homicide rates in states without the capital punishment are lower than the national average • Proven to not deter murder

18. Cost of Capital Punishment • Cost of trial and sentencing • More involved process when capital punishment is possible sentence • Cost/Opportunity of appeal • Resources are diverted • Positive incarceration programs suffer from high costs of capital punishment cases.

19. Trial Fairness • Death row inmates often can not afford lawyers • Provided aid is at lesser quality to well paid attorneys • Residence of criminal • Non-cohesive states provide great difference in similar trials depending on state crime is trialed in This lawyers first capital punishment case

20. State mandated capital offenses • Gregg vs. Georgia of 1976 • Each state who facilities capital punishment must also have a list of “capital offenses” or crimes for which capital punishment could be sentenced • Difference in lists of capital offenses leads to inconsistencies

21. Public Opinion • Only just over half of public believe capital punishment should not be used • Juries are beginning to sentence death more infrequently.

22. Race in Capital Punishment Cases • Studies showed that prosecutors are more likely to sentence death when the race of the victim is white

23. Policy Recommendations • There have been approximately 560,000 murders and 358 executions from 1967-1996 FBI's Uniform Crime Report (UCR) & Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). • Therefore one of our recommendations is to increase the number of persons executed to make the death penalty a real deterrent for murder.

24. Set a predetermined set of standards that each state would follow • If the states chose to follow these standards they would receive extra money from the Federal Government to be used for criminal justice. • This would make the entire system fairer. • Some of the statutes that we would like to see in this standard would be the number of appeals allowed for each case, to cut down on costs associated with capital punishment cases, and a list that showed what crimes were punishable by death.

25. Death Penalty is the highest form of punishment in the United States • If the death penalty was to no longer exist life sentences would fill that spot and would become more expensive and less likely used. • It would also make life sentences seem more severe. This scares our group because it could lead to lower sentences for major crimes.

26. Work Cited • Justice For All - A Criminal Justice Reform Organization. Web. 16 Apr. 2011. <http://www.jfa.net/index.html>. • "Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Amnesty International USA - Protect Human Rights. Web. 16 Apr. 2011. <http://www.amnestyusa.org/human-rights/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/page.do?id=1031003>. • "Innocence." Pro-death Penalty.com. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/innocence.htm>. • "Death Penalty : Profiles of Exonerees, Victims, and Law Enforcement." Death Penalty. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://deathpenalty.org/section.php?id=26>. • "State by State Database." Death Penalty Information Center. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/state_by_state>. • "Death Penalty Facts." Amnesty International. Web. <http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/factsheets/DeathPenalty Facts.pdf>. • Dictionary Google. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://www.google.com/search?source=ig>. • "Facts About the Death Penalty." Death Penalty Information Center. Web. <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf>. • Marzilli, Alan. Capital Punishment. New York: Chelsea House, 2008. Print. • Aiusa Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. "Death Penalty Facts." Amnesty USA. Amnesty International, Oct. 2010. Web. 10 Apr. 2011. <http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/factsheets/DeathPenaltyFacts.pdf>.