Capital Punisment

Capital Punishment is the legal infliction of the
death penalty.   In the United States capital
punishment is legal in thirty-nine of the fifty
states.   Beginning in 1973, prison populations began
an inevitable growth.   There were 204,211 inmates in
1973, and by 1977 the number of prisoners had grown to
285,456, which later grew to 315,974 in 1980.   By
1976, it was clear that the death penalty had to be
reinstated.   America’s twenty-one year experiment with
capital punishment has resulted in a total of 392
executions, seventy eight of which took place in 1996
alone.   Of these only thirty-four were federal cases,
out of which thirty two were male and only two were
female.  

        Every year about 15,000 killers are charged and only
about 300 wind up on death row.   The death row
population is constantly increasing.   It is now more
than 3,000.   Because of constant appeals, it takes a
person on death row typically between five to eight
years to finally get executed.   To kill all the
prisoners on death row, it is estimated that it would
take two executions a day for seven years.

        Crimes such as aiding in suicide, causing a boat
collision resulting in death, forced marriage,
procuring an abortion resulting in the death of the
mother, espionage, castrating another, rape, homicide,
child molesting resulting in death and conspiracy to
kidnap for ransom among many others are, in some
states, crimes that are punishable by death.   What the
law permits, however, is not always used by the courts
or the executive authorities.   Most executions are a
result of a murder or rape, and a small number for
robbery, kidnapping, burglary, aggravated assault and
espionage.

        In the US, the death penalty is currently authorized
in one of five ways: hanging, which has been the
traditional method of execution throughout the
English-speaking world; electrocution, which was
introduced by New York State in 1890; the gas...