Capital Punishment in the United States

By Luke Langlois

For decades, capital punishment has been fiercely debated in the United States. Should it exist? What methods should be used? Is it even Constitutional? Today, I will not be answering those questions. Instead, I will be putting forward some facts about capital punishment, and the state of it today in the United States. For those who do not know, “capital punishment” is another way of saying “the death penalty.”

Capital punishment was kind of “revamped” in the 1960’s and 1970’s. From 1967 to 1977, there was no capital punishment in the United States. The Supreme Court had overturned capital punishment statutes in the case of Furman v. Georgia citing “cruel and unusual punishment.” All death sentences were reduced to life in prison. So, most states passed new laws regarding capital punishment so as to continue the practice without violating the Court’s ruling. In 1976, the Supreme Court approved the legality of the revamped capital punishment laws in Gregg v. Georgia. The states resumed their capital punishment ways. Utah was the first state to continue the trend. Utah executed someone via firing squad in 1977. The 10 year period without executions had taken its toll on the nation’s views–more people turned anti-capital punishment. A good amount of the states were working either to abolish capital punishment or slow down execution rates. By 1976, many states had already abolished capital punishment, and states are still working to abolish it to this day. Currently, there are thirty states where capital punishment is legal. There are many more states that are in a bit of a “legal limbo” with capital punishment, like California. California is on an execution hiatus and has not executed anyone since 2006. But, it is still “legal,” and California has the largest number of death row inmates, with about 740. The most recent state to completely abolish capital punishment was Washington, in October of 2018.

What does “capital punishment” entail nowadays? Since 1976, most criminals sentenced to death have been executed with a lethal drug injection. Since 1976, there have been 1,477 executions. There have been 1,302 lethal injections, 158 electrocutions, 11 gas inhalations, 3 hangings, and 3 firing squad executions. These methods may seem archaic to you, but they are still legal in many states. Electrocution is legal in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Tennessee actively uses this method, with it last being used on December 6th of 2018. Lethal gas is still legal in Arizona, California, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. This is not an actively used method, rather it is an alternative. It was last used in Arizona in 1999. Execution via firing squad is still legal in Utah and Oklahoma. Again, it is an alternative, and was last used in Utah in 2010. In this case, the offender chose the firing squad. Hanging, the final legal execution method, is only legal in New Hampshire, but it was last used in Delaware in 1996. There are no other execution methods that are currently legal in the United States.

There are many small intricacies about capital punishment within the states. There are still many heavy decisions to be made about capital punishment. Who knows what the future holds?

Sources can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States

I know there is a stigma about Wikipedia, so I made sure to double check all of the information I pulled. It provides a great summary of everything.

Editor: AJ Patencio