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• Capital Punishment, also called the "Death Penalty", is the practice in which a government executes a person as punishment for committing a crime. Capital punishment is subject to lengthy legal process, both during the trial and before the sentence is carried out. Consequently, those prisoners who are sentenced to be executed often face a waiting period in prison, commonly called Death Row.

  In March 2009 New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed into law legislation that banned capital punishment in his state. Concurrently, Senator Russ Feingold introduced proposed legislation to congress that would ban capital punishment on a national level.Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/19/feingold-to-death-penalty_n_177126.html Feingold To Death Penalty...] (March 19, 2009)

• Fast Facts

  1. Capital Punishment lawful in 37 of the 50 US states
  2. 1976: Death penalty reinstated
  3. Since 1976 there have been over 1,100 executions in the US
  4. 2008: 37 executions
  5. 67% of capital convictions in the US are overturned
  6. Lethal injection is the most common form in the United States
  7. Since 1976, Texas has executed more inmates than any other state
  8. California has the largest number of inmates on death row
  9. 2003: Governor George Ryan of Illinois commuted the sentences of all death row inmates
  10. 2009: Capital punishment outlawed in New Mexico
  11. National legislation to ban capital punishment on a federal level introduced by Russ Feingold in March 2009

• Advocacy for Capital Punishment

  Advocates argue that state-sanctioned killing deters criminals from committing particularly heinous crimes, improves community by preventing repeated offenses, and grants emotional closure to surviving victims or relatives of victims.

• Contentions Against Capital Punishment

  Conversely, critics argue that capital punishment devalues human life, and that it is in effect state-sponsored murder which compromises the government's morals. Also, critics attack capital punishment on the grounds that there is the ever-present risk that the wrong man or woman could be executed.

• Related Mahalo Pages

  Lethal Injection | Amnesty International | Anti-Death Penalty Day | Troy Anthony Davis | Scott Louis Panetti | Execution of the Mentally Ill | The U.S. Supreme Court | DNA Evidence | Habeas Corpus | George Ryan | Lethal Injection | New Jersey Death Penalty | Michael Addison | Thaddeus Jimenez | Thomas Capano

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