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)

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.

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.