The death penalty

Nothing the Supreme Court did was more dramatic than its actions with regard to capital punishment. In the early twentieth century, the rate of executions had gone into a long and fairly sharp decline. Then the numbers rose again, until, in 1935, there were 199 executions. Afterward, executions began to drop off again. Nine states abolished the death penalty between 1907 and 1917 (although seven of these had second thoughts and brought it back). Civil liberties organizations worked and argued and lobbied to get rid of capital punishment. They also took their fight to the courts. Then, in 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court decided that the death penalty, in every version, in every state, was unconstitutional – was, in fact, cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth Amendment. Every statute on the subject was wiped off the books. The life of every man and woman on death row was spared.

Furman lasted exactly four years. It was, to begin with, a highly fractured opinion. Four of the nine Justices were in dissent; and each of the five in the so-called majority wrote his own opinion. Some Justices thought the death penalty was unconstitutional. Any form of capital punishment. But they were a minority. Others, who joined them, did not condemn the death penalty absolutely – only the death penalty as it then existed. Most of the states began to comb the text of the Furman opinions for clues, looking for the ways to salvage the death penalty. They passed new statutes, hoping for better luck. The Supreme Court had said the death penalty was just too random, too arbitrary. Very well, thought North Carolina; we will take away the guesswork and the randomness: all first-degree murderers, and aggravated rapists, will get the death penalty. Other states took a different tack: they set up a two-stage process. The first stage would be the “guilt” stage. Once is defendant guilty, a second “trial” occurs – the trial of life or death. To impose the death penalty, the jury (or, in some cases, the judge) would have to find one or more aggravating circumstances. Both type of statute came before the Supreme Court. The Court in 1876 struck down the North Carolina type of statute. But it approved of the other type, which was the Georgia version. The death penalty was in business again.

At the end of the century, the situation remained quite complex. About a dozen states had no death penalty at all. The rest of them did: but in some, it was rarely or never used. New Jersey, for example, had not executed anybody since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Most executions were in the South, in Florida, in Virginia. Texas was in a class by itself. It alone accounted for about a third of the executions in the country.

In most states, the death penalty was not only rare, it was painfully slow. In the late twentieth century, speedy execution had become completely impossible. There were too many procedures, appeals, hearings, and writs, federal and state. Men grew on death row. Ten years was no time at all for the condemned. Some convicts were put to death only after fifteen or even twenty years of waiting, and after a long and torturous procedural path.

At the very end of the century people began to ask themselves: how many innocent men have actually gone to their death? The governor of Illinois called for a moratorium. So did the American Bar Association. But the machinery of death, slow and creaky it was, ground on.

TASK 6. Answer the following questions:

1) Why did the rate of executions go into a long and fairly sharp decline in the early twentieth century?

2) When did nine states abolish the death penalty? Why did seven states bring it back?

3) What does a two-stage process mean?

4) Where do most executions take place? Why?

TASK 7. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate words from the box.

capital punishment; innocent; put to death; executions; convicts; aggravating circumstances; defendant; first-degree murderers

(1 All ___________, and aggravated rapists, got the death penalty in North Carolina.

(2) Once is _________ guilty, a second “trial” occurs – the trial of life or death.

(3) Some __________ were ___________ only after fifteen or even twenty years of waiting, and after a long and torturous procedural path.

(4) Nothing the Supreme Court did was more dramatic than its actions with regard to _____________.

(5) People began to ask themselves: how many _________ men have actually gone to their death?

(6) Texas alone accounted for about a third of the _________ in the country.

(7) To impose the death penalty, the jury (or, in some cases, the judge) would have to find one or more ___________.

TASK 8. Find in the text the words that mean the following:

• the punishment of being executed for a crime

• a group of prison cells for criminals condemned to death

• not guilty of wrongdoing

• a person who has been found guilty of a crime or crimes in a lawcourt and is in prison

• to end the existence of a law, a practice, an institution

• the killing of somebody as a legal punishment

• a group of people in a lawcourt who have been chosen to listen to the facts in a case and to decide whether the accused person is guilty or not guilty

• a formal examination of evidence in a lawcourt, by a judge and often a jury, to decide if smb accused of a crime is guilty or not

TASK 9. Study the text below, making sure you fully comprehend it. Where appropriate, consult English-Russian dictionaries and/or other references & source books on law.