Americans have argued over the death penalty since the early days of the republic. Today, high-profile cases provide frequent opportunities for debate between proponents and opponents of capital punishment. For example, in 1997, Timothy McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1993 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people. The execution of Karla Faye Tucker in 1998 for the pickax murder of two people was the first execution of a woman in Texas since 1863 and the second nationally since 1984. In addition, private concerns Americans have about the effect of violent crime on their neighborhoods and families have led many to decide that the death penalty is an acceptable form of punishment and to support politicians who favor it. Public or private, the debate over the death penalty revolves around three questions: 1) Is capital punishment allowable under the U.S. Constitution? 2) Is it moral? 3) Does it deter crime more than life in prison? The focus of this anthology is on the third question.

According to data collected by the federal government, between 1930 and 1968, 3,859 persons were executed in the United States under civil authority. After 1950, the number of executions consistently declined from 105 in 1951 to 2 in 1967—and to zero from 1968 through 1976— primarily due to legal challenges to the death penalty. These challenges culminated in 1972 when the Supreme Court, in the case of Furman v. Georgia, ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional as practiced at the time. The Court found that the arbitrary application of the sentence by juries violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The 5-4 decision effectively struck down all existing state and federal capital punishment statutes. In response, thirty-five states quickly wrote new capital punishment laws that attempted to meet the requirements for fairness and consistency established by the Court. Within four years, six hundred people had been sentenced to death under the new statutes, though none were executed because states were unsure of the constitutionality of their death penalty legislation. In 1976, the Supreme Court reversed its course and ruled that “the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution.” The nearly ten-year moratorium on executions ended in 1977 when Utah executed convicted murderer Gary Gilmore by firing squad; since then more than 350 persons have been put to death. As of 1997, more than 3,200 persons are on death row in thirty-four states (thirty-eight states have capital punishment statutes, but four of them have not imposed sentences). All of these prisoners have been convicted of murder; 98 percent are men.

The United States is the only Western democracy that allows capital punishment, and the sentence has widespread popular and political support. In a 1997 Time magazine poll, 74 percent of those surveyed said they favor capital punishment for persons convicted of serious crimes. This number, though, masks the conflicted attitudes Americans have toward the death penalty. The same poll reveals that when Americans are asked whether they think vengeance is a legitimate reason to execute a murderer, 60 percent do not. Additionally, a slight majority (52 percent to 45 percent) do not believe the death penalty deters crime. Most Americans may want killers executed, but a majority are uncomfortable with the two primary reasons for capital punishment—vengeance and deterrence.