Fairmind

The Death Penalty

The death penalty punishes a crime by killing the criminal. Some U.S. states have it; others do not. Should it be abolished altogether?
A room with a medical table that has restraining straps
Lethal injection room at San Quentin prison. Image: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

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Facts

To understand the arguments pro and con below, here are a few preliminary facts about the death penalty (also known as capital punishment):

  • The death penalty is reserved for murder cases with “aggravating” circumstances. Examples include mass murder, killing children, murders involving sexual assault, hired killings, and killings carried out with particular cruelty.1

  • Most executions involve crimes with one or two victims. Although executions for mass killings make the most news, they represent only a tiny fraction of executions.2

  • 1976 was the beginning of the death penalty’s modern era in the United States. In that year, the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume under new sentencing rules. Four years earlier, the Court had halted all executions because the old laws were too unfair and inconsistent.3

  • As of November 2025, 27 states, the federal government, and the military allowed the death penalty. 23 states and Washington, DC, had life in prison without parole as the maximum penalty.4

  • As of November 2025, 44 people had been executed in the United States in 2025.5 That is well above 2024’s total of 25 executions,6 but well below the modern peak of 98 executions in 1999.7

  • Executions are mostly by lethal injection. Some states also authorize other methods (electrocution, firing squad, lethal gas, or hanging), but they are rarely used.8

  • As of 2023, the average time between sentencing and execution was 23 years, an all-time high.9 This length reflects the extensive review and appeals that come with death penalty cases. Also, delays can be caused by factors beyond a given case, like if a state governor suspends executions for a period of time.

Factors to Consider

There are five main factors to consider about the death penalty, each with arguments from supporters and opponents. At the end of this guide, Appendix: Editorial Choices lists several factors and arguments we did not include in this main section with explanations why.

1. Morality

The death penalty can lead different people to exactly opposite moral intuitions.

Supporters often argue the death penalty is morally required for the very worst crimes:

In 1991, I was called to a shocking death scene. A young mother was rendered helpless and made to watch as her baby was executed. The mother was then mutilated and killed. I knew the killer should not lie in some prison with three meals a day, clean sheets, cable TV, family visits and endless appeals. For justice to prevail, some killers just need to die.

—Oklahoma County District Attorney Robert H. Macy10

Opponents often argue the death penalty is always morally wrong because it uses killing as punishment. They see it as the last relic of violent punishments like torture or beatings, which society has left behind:

As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.

—Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King11

Opponents say life in prison without parole already protects society, provides finality, and reflects the seriousness of the crime—without taking another life.

The key question: For the worst crimes, is execution the only just punishment, never a just punishment, or is its moral status not so absolute?

2. Fairness

The death penalty is not applied equally. Most notably, a small percentage of counties account for most death-sentencing activity,12 and cases with white victims are more likely to result in death sentences.13

Supporters often argue that if someone commits a crime heinous enough to deserve the death penalty, the punishment is justified even if other similar cases are handled differently. They attribute disparities to broader features of the criminal justice system—local discretion, budgets, and jury attitudes—rather than to the death penalty itself.

Opponents often argue the death penalty is applied in a fundamentally unfair way. The same crime and circumstances get a death sentence in one county and not in the county next door. Change the race of the victim, they note, the odds of getting the death penalty change. Although no one expects exactly equal application, they say, no one should accept systematically unfair application when the difference between outcomes is life and death.

What else to know: In 1987’s McCleskey v. Kemp decision, the Supreme Court accepted that statistical studies showed racial disparities in how the death penalty is applied. But it ruled that such disparities were only unconstitutional if a defendant could prove intentional discrimination in their own case.14 This aligns with death penalty supporters’ view that fairness turns on intent, whereas opponents say that a clear pattern of unequal outcomes is enough to make the system unfair, even without proof of intent.

The key question: Is it more important to judge fairness by which cases do or don’t get death sentences, or by whether the cases that do get death sentences apply the law fairly?

3. Innocence and Error

Some people on death row have been exonerated—meaning their convictions or death sentences were overturned. The exact number is debated, ranging from roughly 65 to 200 people since the 1970s, depending on whether exoneration is narrowly defined as innocence proven or broadened to include procedural failures.15 It is also possible that innocent people have been executed, but confirming this is hard because cases are rarely reopened after an execution.16

Supporters often argue that exonerations show the system’s layers of review and appeal are catching the rare mistakes. They say these safeguards are essential but believe opponents often use every available step to delay executions as long as possible, even in cases where guilt has been reaffirmed by multiple courts and is beyond reasonable doubt.

Opponents often argue that wrongful execution is the ultimate miscarriage of justice. They note it’s a risk that comes uniquely with the death penalty. They say that exonerations show only that the appeals system works sometimes, not necessarily all the time. They emphasize we don’t know whether, when, or how often the system allows wrongful executions—and that this uncertainty is unacceptable for a punishment that cannot be undone.

The key question: How much, if any, risk of irreversible error should society tolerate in exchange for having the death penalty available?

4. Deterrence

Many people believe that the threat of punishment deters crime, and harsher punishments create stronger deterrence. For the death penalty, some deterrent or preventive effects clearly exist: Executed prisoners cannot kill again,17 and there are documented cases where offenders have said they spared victims’ lives to avoid the death penalty.18

But do these situations reflect isolated cases or a meaningful pattern? The answer is unknown because the overall deterrent effect of the death penalty compared to life without parole (LWOP) has not been reliably measurable. This does not automatically imply the effect is too small to measure; other factors that influence murder rates are large and numerous enough to obscure any overall deterrent effect, even of significant size.19

Supporters often argue that documented cases of deterrence, although isolated, show that the death penalty provides—at minimum—a small but meaningful margin of public-safety benefit. They also argue that because deterrence cannot be measured population-wide, the true effect is likely larger than the isolated cases we can observe. For supporters, the known cases alone justify retaining the punishment, and any additional, unmeasured deterrence only reinforces that conclusion.

Opponents often argue that although isolated cases of deterrence exist, they are too infrequent to demonstrate the death penalty provides a significant advantage over LWOP. They note it is uncertain how often potential offenders actually weigh the difference between execution and life imprisonment. They argue this happens rarely because many offenders believe they will not be caught, act under stress or impaired judgment, misunderstand the legal risks, or simply do not think about consequences at all. In opponents’ view, the evidence for deterrence is too thin and uncertain to outweigh the death penalty’s problems.

What else to know: Because current methods cannot reliably measure the death penalty’s overall deterrent effect, people differ on how to reason under uncertainty. Some say we should err on the side of assuming greater deterrence because if the assumption is correct, innocent lives will be saved. Others emphasize the risks and costs of a punishment whose overall impact cannot be demonstrated.

The key question: How much should deterrence matter as a justification when its overall effect remains uncertain beyond isolated cases?

5. Cost

Few argue that dollar costs should be the primary reason whether to abolish or retain the death penalty. But cost has increasingly become a tipping factor when moral and empirical questions seem unresolvable. Since 2007, several states have abolished the death penalty with cost cited prominently among the reasons.20

Supporters often argue that justice—not dollars—should guide punishment for the worst crimes. They acknowledge that capital cases are uniquely expensive but contend that society has always accepted higher costs for the most serious crimes. Some add that a more streamlined system with fewer delays would lower costs.

Opponents often argue the death penalty is an expensive system that rarely results in executions.21 They note that maintaining it requires millions of dollars per year in additional costs for each state—and in some states, more than a hundred million dollars.22 They say these expenses burden taxpayers while producing little public benefit.

What else to know: For a state, abolishing the death penalty produces immediate savings by eliminating the extra costs of death penalty trials, sentencing, and appeals, as well as maintaining a death-row unit. Over the long term, replacing executions with life-without-parole sentences adds housing and healthcare costs as prisoners age. But because relatively few death sentences result in execution—and because most death-sentenced prisoners already spend decades in prison—the additional incarceration costs are small compared with the savings from avoiding all death penalty trials and appeals.

The key question: How much weight should cost carry when the central disputes are moral, empirical, and about fairness?

Example Viewpoints

The questions above represent genuine tensions without easy answers. Below are examples of how different people might weigh these and other considerations to arrive at coherent positions. The examples illustrate a spectrum, from believing the death penalty should be used more often to believing it should never be used at all. You might find yourself aligning with one of these viewpoints, or you might form your own opinion by combining elements from multiple of them.

Expander

I believe the death penalty should not only be retained but also streamlined and expanded. When someone kidnaps, sexually assaults, and murders children, it should not take decades to carry out the sentence. But opponents have successfully abused the appeals process to the point that many prosecutors won’t seek a death sentence. They don’t want to spend years fighting every step, even if they will win the vast majority of the time. We need to streamline appeals to prevent abuse and to let the death penalty be used when justice demands it.

Pragmatic Supporter

I am for the death penalty because it is the only proper punishment for the worst of the worst crimes—not simply killings but mass killings, child killings, killings for hire and so on. I understand the death penalty is applied unevenly, that it may not be much of a deterrent, and there can potentially be mistakes. But we’ve lived with these flaws for a long time. Why? Because it’s even worse to let the most heinous killers live out their lives like lesser prisoners, when only death can balance their crimes.

Pragmatic Opponent

I am against the death penalty not for moral reasons but because it’s so flawed in practice. In the same state, the same crime can end up with the death penalty in one county and life in prison in another. It has clear racial bias in how it’s applied. And despite taking many years, appeals cannot guarantee we avoid executing an innocent person. That is too much wrong, not to mention it costs taxpayers more. I am for life in prison without parole.

Abolitionist

I am against the death penalty for the same reason I am against torture as punishment: When the state crosses the line to violence as punishment, it is wrong. I can cite the other reasons people should oppose the death penalty (applied unfairly, possibility of error, questions around deterrence, cost to taxpayers), but even if those weren’t concerns, I’d still say the death penalty is wrong and must be fully abolished.

Deciding

The death penalty debate mixes deep moral disagreement, uncertain evidence about deterrence, cost concerns, and questions about fairness and the risk of error. It’s no surprise that reasonable people reach different conclusions. Our goal has been to give you the facts, arguments, and a range of viewpoints to help inform your own thinking. What you decide is up to you.

Appendix: Editorial Choices

In writing this guide, there were many choices to make—for example, how to frame the issue, which factors, arguments, and viewpoints to include, and how to phrase them. For those interested, below are notable choices. You can quickly scan the topics, clicking any for details.

Framing the Question

We framed this guide around the question “Should the death penalty be abolished?” because it is the normal way the issue is publicly debated. Ballot measures, legislative proposals, and most national discussions have focused on whether to end the death penalty, not whether to expand it or adjust specific features of it.

Advocacy Groups as Data Sources

We prefer to use neutral and authoritative sources for facts. But in the death-penalty debate, the most complete data on death sentences, executions, and exonerations comes from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a group that opposes the death penalty. DPIC’s data is widely used by the media, researchers, and courts. On aspects of the topic where DPIC has the best data, we use it in this guide. In one area where DPIC’s data is disputed, exonerations, we provide both DPIC’s count and a lower estimate offered by researchers who support the death penalty.

Constitutional “Cruel and Unusual Punishment”

The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment forbids “cruel and unusual punishments.”23 Although the death penalty existed at the time the Eighth Amendment was ratified, opponents argue that evolving standards of decency should now qualify the death penalty as “cruel and unusual.”24

We did not include this angle in the main factors to consider because, as a legal matter, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that current execution methods are acceptable under the Constitution.25 Opponents may believe the Court is wrong, but that position mainly repeats the moral arguments already covered in the “Morality” section.

Botched Executions

Opponents often raise the concern of “botched executions” as a reason to oppose the death penalty. There are indeed clear cases of botched executions with gruesome consequences for the prisoner.26 Historically, death penalty opponents estimate the botched execution rate at about 1 in 33 executions.27 However, they argue that the rate has increased in the past few decades due to the increasing use of lethal injection, which they say has a botched execution rate of about 1 in 14 executions.28

Supporters respond that these figures use a broad definition of “botched,” counting deviations from protocol even when there is little evidence of conscious suffering.29 They also note that, even using opponents’ own tallies, the large majority of executions proceed without major incident. Some supporters further argue that recent problems with lethal injection were made more likely by opponents’ efforts to pressure pharmaceutical companies into blocking the use of the most reliable drugs, forcing states to rely on less-tested drug combinations.30

For purposes of this guide, we concluded that concern about botched executions is valid but secondary to the main factors. Our reasons were, botched executions are real but rare, and the argument based on them is not decisive—that is, even if the risk of botched executions could be eliminated by adopting consistently reliable methods, death penalty opponents would still oppose capital punishment due to one or more of the other factors.

International Comparisons

Opponents often note that nearly 75% of countries have abolished the death penalty.31 They say the United States should do the same. This comparison can be powerful, but we omitted it from the key factors to consider for multiple reasons:

  • The United States should evaluate the death penalty based on the substance of the debate here—its moral rationale, empirical evidence, and how it fits with our state-based system of laws—not on how other countries resolved their own versions of the debate, each with different specifics.

  • If many other countries started reinstating the death penalty, opponents here would be highly unlikely to change their views.

  • When countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany abolished the death penalty, they did so against public opinion in their countries, which favored the death penalty. These were cases where elites acted without anything like a societal consensus.32 We are not judging this, only noting there is more to the story than a simple international consensus against the death penalty.

U.S. Public Opinion

Both sides of the death penalty debate try to claim some aspect of U.S. public opinion as evidence. Supporters emphasize that a majority of Americans have always supported the modern death penalty, which is true although support as of 2025 is down to a thin majority.33 Opponents emphasize that when Americans are explicitly asked to choose between the death penalty and life in prison without parole (LWOP), most choose LWOP.34

Although public opinion is interesting to note, it is not a main factor to consider in the debate. Each side invokes whichever poll result favors its position, but neither treats public opinion as decisive. If national support for the death penalty dropped below 50%, supporters would not switch sides. And if a majority preferred the death penalty over LWOP, opponents would not reverse their position.

Victims’ Families

The perspectives of victims’ families are often part of the death penalty debate. Some families say executing the murderer provides necessary closure for them and justice for their loved one. Other families say the death penalty prolongs their trauma through years of appeals, and they find more peace in the finality of life sentences.

Because families themselves are divided, and because the moral arguments in the main content already capture the competing views about justice and closure, we did not include family perspectives as a separate factor.

Brutalization Effect

Some opponents argue that the death penalty may increase violence by signaling that killing can be an acceptable response to wrongdoing. This “brutalization effect” is essentially an inversion of the deterrence debate and suffers from the same measurement problem as deterrence itself. We did not include it in the “Deterrence” section because both the evidence for the brutalization effect and the explanations offered are even thinner than those for the standard deterrence argument.

Mental Illness and Intellectual Disability

Across multiple cases, the Supreme Court has barred executing people who are intellectually disabled or too mentally ill to understand their punishment.35 Death penalty opponents say that many defendants have impairments that fall short of those legal bars but that still make them more vulnerable to mistakes or unfair outcomes. Because errors and misunderstandings cannot be undone in capital cases, opponents argue that even modest impairments can turn ordinary risks of unfairness into far more consequential ones.

This is a valid issue, but it is about borderline cases within a subtopic that is itself peripheral to the main debate. For that reason, we did not include it in the main factors to consider.

Religious Views

Some people’s views on the death penalty are rooted in their religious faith—for example, views about the sanctity of life, divine authority, or just retribution. We kept them implicit in the morality section because: (1) the moral arguments already cover similar ground, (2) different religious traditions can reach opposite conclusions, and (3) framing in terms of moral reasoning allows the guide to speak across different religions’ beliefs.

Bargaining Chip

Supporters sometimes argue that the death penalty is useful as a bargaining chip. Prosecutors can threaten a possible death sentence to get a defendant to accept a plea deal or to provide information. In those situations, prosecutors may offer life in prison in lieu of pursuing the death penalty.

Although the bargaining-chip argument is valid, it is clearly secondary. The death penalty can only work as a bargaining chip if society is willing to carry it out. And whether we are willing to carry it out depends on the larger questions in this guide—about morality, fairness, deterrence, and the risk of error.

For that reason, we did not include the bargaining-chip argument as one of the main factors to consider.

Further Reading

The arguments summarized in this guide were informed by a range of writings from both supporters and opponents of the death penalty. A web search will return many articles freely available online, usually taking one side or the other. For readers who want to explore book-length, relatively balanced treatments, we recommend the following:

  • Hugo Adam Bedau and Paul G. Cassell (editors), Debating the Death Penalty (2005) — A collection of essays by leading experts with varied views on the death penalty. Bedau was a philosopher and longtime abolitionist; Cassell is a former federal judge and a prominent defender of the death penalty.

  • Scott Turow, Ultimate Punishment (2003) — A prosecutor-turned-novelist reflects on the death penalty. Turow’s skill as a writer makes this a particularly approachable book, even as it delves deeply into both sides’ arguments. He ultimately aligns closest to what this guide calls the “Pragmatic Opponent” viewpoint.

  • Dale Jacquette, Dialogues on the Ethics of Capital Punishment (2008) — A philosopher presents a fictional conversation among characters exploring arguments on both sides of the death penalty debate.

Footnotes

  1. Although there is major overlap, different states have different definitions of crimes eligible for the death penalty. As an example, Death Penalty in Texas lists the special circumstances that qualify in the state that has used the death penalty most. ↩

  2. For example, in 2023 and 2024, about half of executions were for single-victim crimes with aggravating circumstances. The other half involved two or more victims, with the high outlier being five total victims. (The links are to the Death Penalty Information Center’s Execution Database for those years.) ↩

  3. Scott Bomboy, On this day, Supreme Court temporarily finds death penalty unconstitutional, National Constitution Center, June 29, 2023. ↩

  4. State by State, Death Penalty Information Center, accessed November 5, 2025. ↩

  5. Execution List, 2025, Death Penalty Information Center, accessed November 30, 2025. ↩

  6. Execution List, 2024, Death Penalty Information Center, accessed November 20, 2025. ↩

  7. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables, U.S. Department of Justice, July 2025, p. 12. ↩

  8. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables, U.S. Department of Justice, July 2025, p. 13. ↩

  9. 23 years was a doubling from 2005, which itself was a doubling from 1984. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables, U.S. Department of Justice, July 2025, p. 12) ↩

  10. Robert H. Macy, The penalty makes sense, USA Today, December 22, 1999, page 17A. ↩

  11. From a 1981 speech to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, quoted in Patrick Mulvaney, Georgia’s King Tribute Rings Hollow, The Nation, February 7, 2006. ↩

  12. As of November 2025, 439 out of 3,143 counties (about 14%) had at least one execution in the modern era. But only 44 counties (about 1%) accounted for half of all executions. (Calculated from the downloadable version of the Death Penalty Information Center’s Execution Database, accessed November 7, 2025) ↩

  13. Lowell Dodge, Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities, Government Accounting Office, May 3, 1990. ↩

  14. McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987), Justia, accessed November 9, 2025. ↩

  15. The high number is from the Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census Database from 1972 to the end of 2024, using the “Exonerated” filter. In that timeframe, the database lists 8,917 people, 9,938 death sentences, and 194 exonerations. To avoid implying too much precision, we rounded 194 to 200 in the main text. The low number reflects a stricter definition by pro-death-penalty researchers. A 2008 paper (Ward A. Campbell, Exoneration Inflation: Justice Scalia’s Concurrence in Kansas v. Marsh) reported on a re-examination of DPIC’s claimed exonerations. That re-examination argued roughly one-third of DPIC’s exonerations were factually innocent, and the rest were exonerated on procedural failures. Accordingly, we multiplied DPIC’s current number of exonerations by one-third to estimate 65 cases of factual innocence. (Some anti–death-penalty scholars would argue this is an overly conservative estimate even on its own terms. They’d say that if factual innocence is what matters, then the number of innocent defendants must exceed the number of factually innocent exonerations, because exoneration often requires new evidence, such as DNA, that is unavailable in many cases.) Although we could go deeper into the debate about the definition of exoneration, we don’t believe the difference between 65 and 200 (or more) affects the underlying questions presented about innocence and error. The questions are prompted by the undisputed fact that a non-trivial number of people sentenced to death have been exonerated on grounds of factual innocence. ↩

  16. Brandon L. Garrett’s The Banality of Wrongful Executions reviews three book-length investigations arguing that specific modern executions were wrongful. Garrett is generally sympathetic to at least one of these assessments, but he also explains why post-execution innocence claims are so hard to resolve with certainty. ↩

  17. A natural experiment occurred in 1972. The Supreme Court’s Furman decision commuted 558 inmates’ death sentences to lesser sentences. Marquart and Sorensen tracked these inmates for 15 years. They found that 6 inmates committed homicides in prison, killing 4 inmates and 2 correctional officers, and that 1 inmate committed a homicide after release. Death penalty supporters point to these as examples of murders the death penalty might have prevented. Opponents emphasize that 551 of the 558—nearly 99%—did not kill again, and that some of the in-prison killings could still have occurred even if the inmates’ original death sentences had remained in place, depending on when executions would have occurred. (James W. Marquart and Jonathan R. Sorensen, A national study of the Furman-commuted inmates: Assessing the threat to society from capital offenders, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, Volume 23, Issue 1, 1989) ↩

  18. Cassell cites historical cases where offenders reported sparing victims to avoid execution. He also notes cases in which death sentences were commuted or invalidated, leading to offenders’ release and later murders. He highlights a gruesome case from the cohort of inmates tracked by Marquart and Sorenson referenced in the immediately above footnote, but which occurred after publication of their paper—a reminder that the risk in the cohort continued. (Paul G. Cassell, In Defense of the Death Penalty, IACJ Journal, Summer 2008) ↩

  19. At the population level, overall deterrence cannot be measured directly because a deterred crime is one that does not occur. Instead, researchers have analyzed whether murder rates change when death-penalty laws change, or have compared places with the death penalty versus places without. The most thorough review of this research, done by the National Research Council in 2012, found that existing studies could not reliably separate the effect of the death penalty from other factors that also influence murder rates. The bottom line: A deterrent effect may or may not exist, but with current methods, it cannot be measured. (National Research Council, Deterrence and the Death Penalty, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2012, especially chapters 3 and 6) ↩

  20. McLaughlin documents how cost was a prominent factor in state legislatures’ decisions to abolish the death penalty in New Jersey, New Mexico, Connecticut, Illinois, and Maryland. After decades of no state abolitions, these all occurred between 2007 and 2013. (Jolie McLaughlin, The price of justice: Interest-convergence, cost, and the anti-death penalty movement, Northwestern University Law Review, Volume 108 (2013), page 675) ↩

  21. From 1972 to 2024, 18% of people who received death sentences were executed. (Data is from the Death Penalty Information Center’s Death Penalty Census Database. For 1972 to 2024, the counts were 8,917 people sentenced, 1,606 executed.) ↩

  22. Many state-level studies estimate savings from abolishing the death penalty. For a small-state example, Cook in 2009 found North Carolina “would have spent almost $11 million less each year on criminal justice activities (including appeals and imprisonment) if the death penalty had been abolished” (Philip J. Cook, Potential Savings from Abolition of the Death Penalty in North Carolina, American Law and Economics Review, advance access publication December 11, 2009). For a large-state example, the California Legislative Analyst in 2012 estimated that abolishing the death penalty would save California between $100 million and $130 million annually (California Legislative Analyst, Prop 34 Analysis, California General Election Official Voter’s Guide, November 6, 2012). ↩

  23. Bryan A. Stevenson and John F. Stinneford, The Eighth Amendment: Common Interpretations, National Constitution Center, accessed December 1, 2025. ↩

  24. The “evolving standards of decency” reference comes from an opinion in the 1958 Supreme Court case Trop v. Dulles: “The [Eighth] Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” ↩

  25. In three major cases—Baze v. Rees (2008), Glossip v. Gross (2015), and Bucklew v. Precythe (2019)—the Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection procedures did not violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. These cases are often described as the Court’s modern decisions on execution methods. For an accessible explanation of the Bucklew decision, and its connection to Glossip and Baze, see Lyle Denniston, The changing narrative on the death penalty, National Constitution Center, April 15, 2019. ↩

  26. For examples of botched executions using lethal injection, see Human Rights Watch: So Long as They Die: Lethal Injections in the United States, 2006. ↩

  27. Botched Executions, Death Penalty Information Center, accessed November 21, 2025. ↩

  28. Botched Executions, Death Penalty Information Center, accessed November 21, 2025. ↩

  29. Michael Conklin, Botched Statistics on Botched Executions: Refuting Austin Sarat’s Claims, Mitchell Hamline Amicus Curiae (May 19, 2022). ↩

  30. Sam Baker and National Journal, Alito: Critics Waging ‘Guerilla War Against the Death Penalty’, The Atlantic, April 29, 2015. ↩

  31. Amnesty International reported that as of December 31, 2024, 145 (out of 195 total) countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice. (Death Sentences and Executions 2024, Amnesty International, 2025) ↩

  32. Sara Sun Beale, Public Opinion and the Abolition or Retention of the Death Penalty: Why is the United States Different?, presented at the International Society for Reform of Criminal Law’s conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, June 23, 2014. ↩

  33. Gallup has been asking “Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?” since the 1930s. Between 1975 and 2025, “Yes” has varied between 52% and 80%. As of 2025, it was at 52%. (Lydia Saad, Americans Prefer Tempered Crime-Fighting Methods, Gallup, October 30, 2025) ↩

  34. In some years, Gallup has asked “If you could choose between the two following approaches, which do you think is the better penalty for murder – the death penalty or life in prison, with absolutely no possibility of parole?” The last time Gallup asked, in 2019, 60% chose life in prison without parole, and 36% chose the death penalty. In that same year, Gallup also asked its normal question: “Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?” 56% favored the death penalty, and 42% were against. (Jeffrey M. Jones, Americans Now Support Life in Prison Over Death Penalty, Gallup, November 25, 2019) ↩

  35. Limitations on Imposition of the Death Penalty: Cognitively Disabled, Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, accessed November 13, 2025. ↩