Capital punishment, or the death penalty is the execution of an individual by the government, either federal or state, as punishment for a crime. Presently thirty-eight states, the federal govern ment and the US military have death penalty statutes on their books. Since the Supreme Court ruled in 1977 (Coker v. Georgia) that the death penalty was a disproportionate punishment for rape, almost all capital crimes involve murder or the death of a victim that occurred in the course of another crime. The method of execution varies according to state, although lethal injection and electrocution are by far the most common.

All of the colonies had death-penalty statutes on their books and these policies remained largely unchanged after the American revolution. Although there were two periods of intense abolitionist activity in the nineteenth century this largely ended by 1917. The entry of the US into the First World War, along with high-profile murders, such as the Leopold and Loeb case in the 1920s, led to a widespread resurgence of the death penalty Throughout the 1930s and 1940s an average of 140 people were being executed each year. However, in the 1950s there began a rapid decline in this rate as popular support waned. This opposition was fueled in part by the controversial cases of Caryl Chessman and Barbara Graham, whose stories had been turned into highly successful books and films.

By the mid-1960s executions were down to less than twenty annually and publicopinion polls showed opposition to the death penalty at an all-time high. In 1967 there began an unofficial moratorium that lasted ten years. Yet, in 1972, the US Supreme Court invalidated all existing capital punishment statutes. In a five to four decision (Furman v.

Georgia) the court ruled that capital punishment violated the 8th and 14th Amendments because it was being imposed in an arbitrary and capricious fashion. There was an angry and swift reaction by many of the states, and several immediately implemented changes in their sentencing procedures in order to meet the Court’s constitutional concerns. As a result of these modifications, the Court ruled in 1976 that states could re-institute the death penalty. A year later Utah executed Gary Gilmore by firing squad.

Since then, over 550 people have been put to death, with four states—Texas, Virginia, Missouri and Florida—accounting for 60 percent. The US has the largest death-row population in the world with close to 3,600 individuals currently awaiting execution: 46 percent are white, 43 percent African American and 8 percent Hispanic. Less than 1 percent are women or citizens of another country. Since 1970, eighty-two individuals have been released from death row after new scientific (genetic/DNA) evidence had established their innocence. Several polls conducted throughout the 1980s and 1990s saw a substantial growth in widespread public support for capital punishment, although it also saw the rise of numerous abolitionist organizations and a number of highly critical books and films (Dead Man Walking, 1997). Various local and state moratoria have emerged, although public support remains high.