Death Penalty

Death Penalty

Unit 8 Requirements

QuizDiscussion Board2 Web Field Trip QuestionsChapters 14, 15, & 16 – online materialSeminarFinal papers

Countries Without the Death Penalty

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom.

Countries With the Death Penalty

Afghanistan, Bahamas, Belize, China, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States, Vietnam, Yemen, Zimbabwe

Death Penalty

Fuhrman v. Georgia (1972)

5-4 Decision that the indiscriminate manner in which the Death Penalty was being applied violated the 8th Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

Death Penalty

State’s respond to Furman v. Georgia

37 States pass new death penalty laws

Woodson v. North Carolina (1976)

Death Penalty

38 States and the Federal Government have the Death Penalty.

Death PenaltyWhen do you think a person can be sentenced

to death? For what Crimes?

Death PenaltyWhen do you think a person can be sentenced

to death? For what crimes?

Coker v. Georgia – Rape of an adult woman

Death Penalty

Do you think that there can ever be a crime besides murder that the death penalty would be an appropriate sentence for?

Death Penalty

What about the rape of a child? What if the child was kidnapped and held for years repeatedly raped – should the death penalty be an available sentence?

Louisiana v. KennedyLouisiana had a law that allowed for the death

penalty for a rape of a child under the age off 12

There were five other states that also had laws allowing for the death penalty for the rape of a child . The State Court held that child rape was unique in terms of the harm that it inflicted upon the victim and society and concluded that, short of murder, there is no crime more deserving of death. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the 8th Amendment prohibits the death penalty for any crime other than 1st degree murder.

What do you think of the ruling?

Low IQ/Juveniles

The Supreme Court has also reviewed in the last couple of years the issue of the death penalty for individuals that have a low IQ and for juveniles.

What do you think on these issues?

Juveniles

In 2005, the Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons struck down the death penalty for juveniles.

22 defendants had been executed for crimes committed as juveniles since 1976.

Low IQ

In 2002, the Supreme Court held in Atkins v. Virginia that it is unconstitutional to execute defendants with mental retardation.

States with Death Penalty Alabama Florida Louisiana New Hampshire*

South Carolina Wyoming Arizona Georgia Maryland New Mexico South Dakota Arkansas Idaho Mississippi North Carolina Tennessee California Illinois Missouri Ohio Texas Colorado Indiana Montana Oklahoma Utah U.S. Gov’t. Connecticut Kansas* Nebraska Oregon Virginia Delaware Kentucky Nevada Pennsylvania Washington

*Indicates jurisdictions with no executions since 1976.

Death Penalty Costs The California death penalty system costs

taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life. Taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each of the state’s executions. (L.A. Times, March 6, 2005)

The most comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment. The majority of those costs occur at the trial level.

Death Penalty Costs Enforcing the death penalty costs Florida $51

million a year above what it would cost to punish all first-degree murderers with life in prison without parole. Based on the 44 executions Florida had carried out since 1976, that amounts to a cost of $24 million for each execution. (Palm Beach Post, January 4, 2000).

In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. (Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992).

Too fat for Death Penalty?An Ohio death row inmate scheduled for

execution says he is too fat to be put to death, arguing that executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs.