Capital punishment
Capital punishment is the execution of a person by the state as punishment for a crime. Capital punishment may also be referred to as the "death penalty." Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences (i.e., murder, treason). The term capital is derived from Latin capitalis, or "regarding the head" (Latin caput). Hence, a person convicted of a capital crime originally was to be punished by the loss of his or her head.[1][2]
Although the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution declares that cruel and unusual punishment is prohibited, the Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty is not a violation of this amendment. As of September 2023, capital punishment was illegal in 23 of the fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia.[3]
States without capital punishment (year of abolishment in parenthesis):
- Alaska (1957)
- Colorado (2020)
- Connecticut (2012)
- Delaware (2016)
- Hawaii (1957)
- Illinois (2011)
- Iowa (1965)
- Maine (1887)
- Maryland (2013)
- Massachusetts (1984)
- Michigan (1846)
- Minnesota (1911)
- Nebraska (2015)
- New Hampshire (2019)
- New Jersey (2007)
- New Mexico (2009)
- New York (2007)
- North Dakota (1973)
- Rhode Island (1984)
- Vermont (1964)
- Virginia (2021)
- Washington (2018)
- West Virginia (1965)
- Wisconsin (1853)
- District of Columbia (1981)[3]
See also
External links
- Death Penalty Information Center
- Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Capital Punishment"
- PBS, "History of the Death Penalty"
Footnotes