#TIME » The Death of the Death Penalty Comments Feed alternate
Why the era of capital punishment is ending
   Death Penalty Time Magazine Cover Photograph by Lucinda Devlin, from
   the modern death penalty remains slow, costly and uncertain. For the
   Tsarnaev aside, the tide is turning on capital punishment in the U.S.,
   death penalty in that state despite a veto attempt by Governor Pete
   and jurors are concluding that the modern death penalty is a failed
   reality is that capital punishment is nothing more than an expensive,
   the Death Penalty Information Center. Only one state, Missouri, has
   Thirty-two states allow capital punishment for the most heinous crimes.
   give up on capital punishment or embrace its difficult, brutal nature.
   comfortable with having a death penalty that literally sheds blood,”
   Public support for capital punishment ebbs and flows. During the
   trend contributed to the brief abolition of the death penalty by order
   building, and states rushed to restore capital punishment by passing
   for the death penalty skyrocketed in lockstep with the murder rate. By
   Gallup has measured the result: support for capital punishment has
   general Mark Earley supported the death penalty while presiding over
   conclusion that the death penalty is based on a false utopian premise.
   accuracy in death penalty convictions and executions.”
   abolish the death penalty since 2007; Nebraska makes it seven. In a
   The death penalty has been made to serve three kinds of purposes. One
   than death. Whatever deterrent capital punishment provides can likely
   compelling force. It’s the force that has kept the death penalty going
   as long as it has. Capital punishment is an expression of the principle
   battle. Momentum is moving away from the death penalty not because it
   When I examined the cost of Florida’s death penalty many years ago, I
   modern death penalty was designed to guide prosecutors, judges and
   But after four decades of tinkering, capital punishment is still a
   death penalty in America’s largest state has become unconstitutionally
   In 1972, when the Supreme Court found the death penalty to be
   of consideration to the propriety of the death penalty as a form of
   all know that the modern death penalty is a failure. When they finally