Many states today have statutory provisions that provide for a sentence of capital punishment (the death penalty) for especially repugnant crimes (known as capital offenses ). Estimates are that more than 18,800 legal executions have been carried out in the United States since 1608, when records began to be kept on capital punishment.

Although capital punishment was widely used throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the mid-twentieth century offered a brief respite in the number of offenders legally executed in this country. Between 1930 and 1967, the year in which the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a nationwide stay of pending executions, nearly 3,800 people were put to death. The peak years were 1935 and 1936, with nearly 200 legal killings each year.

Since 1976, 1,455 executions have taken place in the United States. A modern record for executions was set in 1999, with 98 executions35 in Texas alone. In 2016, there were 20 executions, the least amount of state executions since 1991.

Step 2

Post your response to the following:

• Do you support the death penalty as punishment for certain crimes? Why or Why not?
• Use personal experience.