Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, more than 1,500 people
have been executed by the United States government.
In that time,
190 people who were sentenced to death
have been exonerated.
And right now,
more than 2,400 people are sitting on death row in prisons throughout the U.S.
In a lot of ways, the death penalty functions as,
like, a 15th century or a medieval
solution to a very complicated set of 21st century problems.
And the death penalty remains as inhumane
as it ever has been.
So how did we get here?
The use of the death penalty in the U.S. can be traced back 400 years
to the colonial period, brought to the colonies by European settlers.
Laws on capital punishment varied from colony to colony—
a foreshadowing of the state-by-state variation that exists today.
By the mid-19th century, some states were beginning to question state executions.
Still, capital punishment remained largely intact.
But to some, the process wasn’t efficient enough in exacting cruelty.
Lynch mobs often criticized the state-sanctioned
execution processes as being slow, and ineffective, and costly,
and therefore decided that they wanted to take a mechanism
into their own hands and issue racial terror themselves.
This is Robert Ponce,
an attorney and legal fellow with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project
and the ACLU of Southern California.
The states saw the lynch mob as being a direct threat against their authority
to issue physical domination and social control over its everyday citizens.
And so the state's law enforcement and criminal punishment systems
made it a mission to prove to the lynch mob and to society
that they could exact retribution to wrongdoers
accused of committing criminal offenses.
As lynchings declined in the early 1900s,
state-sanctioned executions rose dramatically until the 1930s.
Around that time,
approximately 160 people were being put to death by the government each year.
But these executions didn’t have broad support.
By the 1960s, public opinion in favor of the death penalty
had dropped significantly.
Gallup polls found that the amount of Americans in support of capital punishment
declined from 62% in 1936 to 42% in 1966.
In 1972, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision
that reflected public opinion.
The court ruled in Furman v. Georgia
that the death penalty was 'cruel and unusual punishment,'
which violated the Constitution.
This ruling effectively suspended the death penalty nationwide.
In the Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia in 1972,
the Supreme Court compared
being issued a death sentence to being struck by lightning.
A justice on the majority in Furman
wrote that it was unconstitutional for the death penalty
to continue with a system
that allows for executions to be ‘so wantonly and so freakishly imposed.’
In other words, the Supreme Court saw the death penalty as arbitrary.
After states imposed additional rules to supposedly eliminate its arbitrary use,
capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, just 4 years later.
'We hold that the statutory system, under which Gregg was sentenced to death,
does not violate the Constitution.'
Since then, more than 1,500 people have been executed across the country.
Yet the death penalty continues to be arbitrarily applied.
Whether or not someone lives or dies
depends less on what they do and more on unrelated circumstances.
Firstly, it varies depending on location.
26 states have abolished or placed a moratorium on the death penalty.
But 24 states still enact capital punishment,
and the decision to seek execution is up to local prosecutors.
So whether or not you’re sentenced to death
could depend on not only what state you’re in,
but what side of the county line you’re on.
Five counties in Texas and in Oklahoma are responsible for most
of the executions that have taken place within the last several years.
It’s not a coincidence that those states are in the South,
where the Civil War-era lynch mobs that paved the way for capital punishment
were most prevalent.
A hundred years ago,
Black people accused of committing crimes against white people
were among the primary targets of the lynch mob.
Today, the death penalty system in the United States continues that trend.
In some states, those convicted of crimes against white people
are significantly more likely to face the death penalty
than those involved in cases with Black victims.
Black defendants are 4 times more likely than white defendants
to be sentenced to death.
Black people also currently make up 41% of those on death row
despite representing only 13% of the general population.
Additionally, Black people are 7.5 times more likely
than white people to be wrongly convicted of murder,
yet they’re more likely to face a longer imprisonment prior to being exonerated.
Beyond the fact that the death penalty is sought and applied in a random, unjust manner,
it's also really expensive.
When the Trump administration resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus,
it cost $4.7 million
to conduct the executions of the first 5 people executed during the summer of 2020.
There are several reasons why executions are so costly.
On top of funding the prosecution and the judge,
taxpayers often also cover the cost of the defense attorneys,
because many people facing death sentences
can’t afford their own legal representation.
Additionally, capital trials are a lengthy process.
They can be 4 times as long as a regular trial.
And while those on death row are in prison,
many are in solitary confinement,
which is more expensive for departments of corrections than genpop.
What’s more, everyone on death row is entitled to multiple appeals,
which are complicated processes that can take decades.
One major thing about the immense financial costs of the death penalty
is that so many people are wrongfully convicted
and later have their sentences overturned on appeal.
So given everything we know about the arbitrary and discriminatory nature of the death penalty,
who is it really serving?
Many victims' families don't wanna have anything to do with an execution,
much less to have the memories of their lost loved ones
be continuously litigated in a court in a very public setting.
But there are still plenty of people who are in favor of capital punishment.
As of 2022,
55% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll supported the death penalty.
There are many people within society who continue to advocate
that the death penalty is necessary to exact retribution or justice.
But the death penalty has never been about justice.
It is about retribution.
It's about vengeance
and some of our ugliest societal impulses and urges.
But the death penalty's history tells no lies.
It is a history of racial animus.
It is a history of arbitrary application.
It is a history of executing the most vulnerable people within society.
And the death penalty remains as inhumane as it ever has been.
The U.S. is one of a few democratic nations that still uses capital punishment.
In fact, more than 70% of the world’s nations have gotten rid of the death penalty.
It’s time Americans ask themselves:
Do we want to be a country that allows the government to arbitrarily decide
who gets to live and who gets to die?