1. History of the Death Penalty
& Recent Developments
The first known execution in the territory now known as the United
States of America was of Captain George Kendall, who was shot by a
firing squad in Jamestown in December 1607 (other sources say
sometime in 1608), accused of sowing discord and mutiny (some
sources say he was also accused of spying against the British for
Spain). The next known execution, allso in the Colony of Virginia,
was of Daniel Frank, put to death in 1622 for the crime of theft.
Since then the death penalty has almost always been a feature of
the criminal justice system, first in the American colonies and then,
after independence, in the U.S. This page focuses on the history of
the death penalty in the U.S. beginning in 1930, when death penalty
statistics first began to be collected on a regular basis. It provides
links to numerous important U.S. Supreme Court decisions on capital punishment,
documents on recent developments in the status of the death penalty nationally, and other
historical resources on the death penalty in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Disclaimer: The Justice Center is not responsible for the content of any outside site linked here, nor does a listing here
imply an endorsement of a site's opinions or content or a guarantee of its accuracy. For further information about this
site, including answers to questions by students, see the FAQ.
The Death Penalty in the U.S.
A brief history of the death penalty in the U.S. since 1930, when death penalty statistics
began to be collected on a regular basis. This history emphasize death penalty statistics and
the constitutional history of the death penalty and is based primarily on the annual capital
punishment bulletins of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice. For
further information, see the Death Penalty Information Center's History of the Death
Penalty.
1930-1967 From 1930, the first year for which statistics are readily available from the
Bureau of Justice Statistics, to 1967, 3,859 persons were executed under civil
(that is, nonmilitary)
jurisdiction in the United
States. During this
period of
2. nearly half a century,
over half (54%) of those
executed were black, 45
percent were white, and
the remaning one
percent were members
of other racial groups --
American Indians (a
total of 19 executed
from 1930-1967),
Filipino (13), Chinese
(8), and Japanese (2).
The vast majority of
those executed were
men; 32 women were
executed from 1930 to
1967.
Three out of five
executions during that
period took place in the
southern U.S. The state of Georgia had the highest number of executions during the period,
totaling 366 -- more than nine percent of the national total. Texas followed with 297 executions;
New York with 329; California with 292; and North Caroline with 263. Most executions -- 3,334
of 3,859 -- were for the crime of murder; 455 prisoners (12%) -- ninety percent of them black --
were executed for rape; 70 prisoners were executed for other offenses.
During the same period, the U.S. Army (including the Air Force) executed 160 persons,
including 106 executions for murder (including 21 involving rape), 53 for rape, and one for
desertion. (The execution for desertion was the subject of the 1974 movie "The Execution of
Private Slovik.") The U.S. Navy has executed no one since 1849.
Moratorium on executions By the end of the 1960s, all but 10 states had laws
authorizing capital punishment, but strong pressure by
forces opposed to the death penalty resulted in an unofficial moratorium on executions for
several years, with the last execution during this period taking place in 1967. Prior to this, an
average of 130 executions per year occurred.
Furman invalidates most Legal challenges to the death penalty culminated in a 5-4
death penalty laws U.S. Supreme Court decision Furman v. Georgia, 408
U.S. 153 (1972), which struck down federal and state
capital punishment laws permitting wide discretion in the application of the death penalty.
Characterizing these laws as "arbitrary and capricious," the majority ruled that they constituted
cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and
3. the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. Only two of the justices concurring in
the decision (Justices Brennan and Marshall) declared capital punishment to be unconstitutional
in all instances, however; other concurrences by Justices Douglas, Stewart, and White focused on
the abitrariness of the application of capital punishment, including the appearance of racial bias
against black defendants. In all, nine separate opinions -- five invalidating existing laws and four
arguing for their retention -- were written by the nine Supreme Court justices spelling out their
different views on what constituted the "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth
Amendment.
New laws upheld More than 600 death row inmates who had been sentenced to death
between 1967 and 1972 had their death sentences lifted as a result of
Furman, but the numbers quickly began to build up again as states enacted revised legislation
tailored to satisfy the Supreme Court's objections to arbitrary imposition of death sentences.
These laws were of two major types:
The first type, providing for guided discretion, was upheld by the Supreme Court in three
related cases: Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 (1976), and
Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242 (1976). The Georgia, Texas, and Florida statutes validated by
the Supreme Court afforded sentencing courts the discretion to impose death sentences for
specified crimes and provided for two-stage, or "bifurcated," trials, involving in the first stage the
determination of a defendant's guilt or innocence and, in the second, determination of the
sentence after consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. In Georgia and Texas,
the final sentencing decision rested with the jury, and in Florida with the judge.
Those laws which provided a mandatory death penalty for specific crimes, and allowing no
judicial or jury discretion beyond the determination of guilt, were declared unconstitutional in
Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976) and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976).
These rulings led directly to the invalidation of mandatory death penalty statutes in 21 states, and
resulted in the modification of the sentences of hundreds of offenders from death to life
imprisonment.
Executions resume
4. The first execution under the new death penalty
laws took place on January 17, 1977, when
convicted murdered Gary Gilmore was executed
by firing squad in Utah. Gilmore's was the first
execution in the United States since 1967. Two
prisoners were executed in 1979; one in 1981; two
in 1982; and five in 1983. Executions increased
dramatically in 1984, with 21 in that year, and
there have been at least 10 executions in the U.S.
every year since. There were 74 executions in
1997. From 1977 to 1997, a total of 432
executions took place. Of the executed prisoners
during this period, 266 were white, 161 were
black, and five were of other races. By the end of
1997, 38 states and the federal government had
capital punishment law; 12 states (including
Alaska) have no death penalty. (Bureau of Justice
Statistics annual bulletins on capital punishment
provide current information on U.S. jurisdictions
which authorize the death penalty.) By the end of
1996, 3,219 prisoners were under sentence of
death, including 3,208 in 34 states and 11 under
federal jurisdiction. All were convicted of murder.
Supreme Court In 1977, the
decisions refine Supreme Court
death penalty laws declared in Coker v.
Georgia, 433 U.S.
584 (1977) that applying the death penalty in rape cases was unconstitutional because the
sentence was disproportionate to the crime. Coker resulted in the removal of twenty inmates --
three whites and 17 blacks -- awaiting execution on rape convictions from death rows around the
country.
In Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978), the high court forced a number of states to again
revise their death penalty statutes by ruling that the sentencing authority in a capital case must
consider every possible mitigating factor to the crime rather than limiting, as Ohio had, the
mitigating factors that could be considered to a specific list. For additional Supreme Court
decisions, see Selected Supreme Court Decisions, below.
Current Status Since the 1976 Gregg decision upholding the constitutionality of
Georgia's death penalty law, numerous states have reinstated capital
punishment in their statutes. The most recent state to enact a death penalty law was New York in
1995. As of January 1998, 38 states and the federal government have capital punishment laws in
5. effect. Alaska, eleven other states -- Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin -- and the District of
Columbia do not have a death penalty. Sites providing information on the current status of the
death penalty throughout the nation are available on the Death Penalty Statistics page.
Selected U.S. Supreme Court Decisions
See also the collection of historic capital punishment decisions from the Legal Information
Institute at Cornell University. LII also provides death penalty cases since 1990 and U.S.
Death Penalty Law Materials. Other resources on the Supreme Court are available through
the Justice Center's Legal Research: U.S. Supreme Court and Courts & Judicial Process: U.S.
Supreme Court links pages.
Determining the Constitutionality of the Death Penalty
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972): Death penalty under current statutes is
"abitrary and capricious" and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments. Oral arguments to the case are available online (using RealAudio) from
Oyez Oyez Oyez.
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976): Reinstates the death penalty under a model of
guided discretion. See also Jurek v. Texas 428 U.S. 262 (1976) and Proffitt v. Florida 428
U.S. 242 (1976).
Refining Death Penalty Laws
Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976): Mandatory death penalty laws
declared unconstitutional. See also Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976).
Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977): Death penalty for the rape of adult women
declared unconstitutional because the sentence was disproportionate to the crime. Twenty
prisoners from around the country were removed from death row as a consequence of this
decision.
Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978): Sentencing authorities must have the discretion to
consider every possible mitigating factor, rather than being limited to a specific list of
factors to consider. This decision resulted in the release of 99 prisoners from Ohio's death
row. See also Bell v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 637 (1978).
Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420 (1980): Sent back for retrial several cases on grounds
of too broad and vague an application of the provision stipulating the death penalty if the
offense was "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhumane, in that it involved
torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim." The ruling did not
affect the statute itself, but the court held that the relevant facts in Godfrey were not
substantially different from other cases in which the provision was not applied.
Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625 (1980): Struck a portion of Alabama's death penalty law
that blocked juries from convicting defendants of an included lesser offense rather than
the capital crime itself; juries were required to either convict a defendant of the capital
crime or to acquit him.
Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38 (1980): Prospective jurors cannot be excluded from service
6. in capital trials because they would be "affected" by the possibility of a capital sentence.
Hopper v. Evans, 456 U.S. 605 (1982): Upheld the death sentence of a defendant
convicted under the Alabama statute partially struck down in Beck v. Alabama. The court
held that, since a lesser offense was not an issue, the law's failure to allow for it did not
prejudice the case; i.e., the conviction of a capital prisoner tried under a partially flawed
statute need not be reversed unless it was actually touched by the imperfection. Evans
was executed on April 22, 1983.
Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982): Struck down the death sentence of a defendant
who had not intended, attempted, or actually killed the victim of a robbery in which he
was an accomplice.
Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37 (1984): Upheld the death penalty in a California case,
holding that there was no constitutional requirement for a proportionality review -- that
is, a review of sentences in comparable cases throughout a state to deterimine if similar
cases are handled in a similar way -- though many state death penalty law provide for
such a review.
Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986): Held that is is unconstitutional to execute a
person who is insane.
McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987): Rejected the claim that death penalty
sentencing in Georgia was administered in a racially biased manner in violation of the
Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, despite statistical data on capital sentences in
Georgia to which showed that black defendants convicted of killing white victims were
more likely to be given the death sentence than other defendants. (See also Specific
Issues: Racial Disparities.)
Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988): Ruled that youths younger than 16 years
old at the time of their offense cannot be constitutionally executed. (See also Specific
Issues: Juveniles.)
Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989): Ruled that it is not categorically unconstitutional
to execute a mentally retarded person found guilty of capital murder. Some states have
enacted laws specifically excluding capital sentencing for persons determined to be
mentally retarded. (See also Specific Issues: Mentally Retarded Persons.)
Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989): Reaffirmed the court's opinion that it was not
unconstitutional to execute youths at least 16 years old at the time of committing a capital
offense. A number of states define minimum ages authorized for capital punishment. (See
also Specific Issues: Juveniles.)
Recent Developments & Future of the Death Penalty
Information on the current status of the death penalty in the U.S. is available from a
number of sites listed on the Death Penalty Statistics page. In addition, the sites below
monitor and issue reports on changes in the death penalty in the U.S.
Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions
The Special Rapporteur is mandated by the U.N. Commission for Human Rights to address
instances of executions that violate international standards regarding human rights and the
right to life. See also The International Context: Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial,
Summary, or Arbitrary Executions. The country reports listed below are excerpted from
7. annual reports of the Special Rapporteur; complete citation information and links to the
complete reports are provided on the individual pages.
Country Report for the United States of America, 1992
Country Report for the United States of America, 1993
Country Report for the United States of America, 1994
Country Report for the United States of America, 1995
Country Report for the United States of America, 1996
Country Report for the United States of America, 1997
Country Report for the United States of America, 1998
1997 Mission to the United States of America: The Special Rapporteur, Mr. Bacre Waly
Ndiaye, conducted a mission to the U.S. from 28 September to 8 October 1997. This is
his report on the mission and its findings. During his mission, Mr. Ndiaye visited
Washington, DC, and the states of New York, Florida, Texas, and California, and met
with federal, state, and prison officials; death row inmates; capital defense attorneys;
victims' families; experts on death penalty issues; and others concerned with the death
penalty. Of particular concern to the Special Rapporteur were reports of discriminatory
and arbitrary use of the death penalty; lack of adequate defense during trial and appeal
procedures; execution of persons who were juveniles at the time of offense and mentally
retarded persons; extension of the scope of the death penalty; and deaths in custody and
deaths due to use of lethal force by law enforcement officials. Recommendations are
included in the report.
Call for a moratorium on executions in the U.S.: Press release, April 3, 1998.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is a well-known international human rights organization based in
London and issues annual reports on human rights issues throughout the world. It
advocates for the abolition of the death penalty, and has an ongoing anti-death penalty
campaign.
United States of America: Developments on the Death Penalty During 1993: London:
Amnesty International, 1994.
Open Letter to the President on the Death Penalty: Letter to President Bill Clinton from
Pierre Sané, Secretary General. London: Amnesty International, January 1994. In an open
letter to President Bill Clinton, Amnesty International called on the U.S. Government to
recognized its responsibility for ensuring equal protection of the law to all U.S. citizens
by establishing a presidential commission on the death penalty and to establish a
moratorium on executions until the commission reported its findings.
"Amnesty International Urges Presidential Commission on Death Penalty": London:
Amnesty International, 1994.
United States of America: Developments on the Death Penalty During 1994: London:
Amnesty International, 1995.
"United States of America: Followup on Amnesty International's Open Letter to the
President on the Death Penalty": London: Amnesty International, 1995. By the end of
1994, no substantive response to the January 1994 open letter had been received and new
legislation widening the scope of the death penalty in the U.S. had been enacted.
"United States of America: Possible Reinstatement of the Death Penalty in New York":
8. London: Amnesty International, 1995.
"United States of America: Reinstatement of the Death Penalty in New York": London:
Amnesty International, May 1995. Governor George E. Pataki signed a bill reinstating
the death penalty in New York on 7 March 1995, making it the 38th state in the U.S. to
have a death penalty.
United States of America: Developments on the Death Penalty During 1995: London:
Amnesty International, February 1996.
United States of America: Death Penalty Developments in 1996: London: Amnesty
International, March 1997.
Amnesty International: Publications on the United States of America
Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC)
DPIC is a non-profit organization providing analysis and information on issues concerning
capital punishment. It advocates abolition of the death penalty.
History of the Death Penalty
What's New: Brief news items on the death penalty.
The Death Penalty in 1998: Year End Report: Washington, DC: Death Penalty
Information Center, December 1998.
The Death Penalty in 1997: Year End Report: Washington, DC: Death Penalty
Information Center, December 1997. Of particular note was the number of executions in
Texas: 37 executions in 1997 as opposed to 3 executions in Texas in 1996. Also reports
on national public opinion polls.
1996 Year End Report: A Summary of Important Events in the Death Penalty in the Past
Year: Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, December 1996.
Federal Death Penalty: Basic information on federal death penalty statutes enacted since
Furman and statistics.
Public Opinion About the Death Penalty: Results of recent public opinion polls.
Twenty Years of Capital Punishment: A Re-evaluation: by Richard C. Dieter.
Washington, DC: Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, June 1996. This
review of the death penalty from an abolitionist viewpoint addresses issues such as racial
disparities and other inequities, executions of juveniles, cost of capital cases,
politicization of the issue, the risk of executing the innocent, and international
developments.
The Future of the Death Penalty in the U.S.: A Texas-Sized Crisis: By Richard C. Dieter.
Washington, DC: Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, 1994. Texas is the
leader in the use of the death penalty in the U.S. Analysis of Texas' experience from an
abolitionist viewpoint is a jumping-off point for discussing the implications to the nation
as a whole of the possibility of official misconduct in death penalty cases, racism, and
inequities in legal representation.
Historical Resources
Other resources on the history of the death penalty in the U.S. and in other nations.
9. Torture and death penalty instruments: From the Middle
Ages to the Industrial Era: Online version of an exhibition
held from 1983 to 1986 in various European cities. Through
Mexico's Conseja Nacional para Cultura y las Artes.
United States
The Execution of Caleb Adams: This site chronicles the life,
crime, trial, and execution by hanging of Caleb Adams, a
nineteen-year-old convicted in 1803 of murdering a six-year-
old boy.
"Dirty Details: Executing U.S. Soldiers During World War II": by J. Robert Lilly. 28
November 1995; earlier draft presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of
Criminology, Boston, November, 1995. Part of a long-term examination of the execution
of U.S. soldiers during World War II, this paper describes the crimes, defendants, and
victims for 18 military executions that took place in England, 1943-1945.
"Executing U.S. Soldiers in England, WWII: The Power of Command Influence and
Sexual Racism": by J. Robert Lilly and J. Michael Thompson. 31 August 1995. The
Visiting Forces Act of 1942 permitted the American military during World War II to use
capital punishment in England as an extension of discipline. The authors argue that the
act's purpose was to control a perceived danger: the socializing of African American
troops with British females, and the possible explosive violence between Caucasian and
African American troops.
England
Tyburn Tree: Public Executions in Early Modern England: Each of the three horizontal
beams of Tyburn "Tree," in London, could hang up to eight people at once. The links
page has links to other sites about executions in English cities.
Tower of London Virtual Tour: "Founded nearly a millennium ago and expanded upon
over the centuries since, the Tower of London has protected, housed, imprisoned and
been for many the last sight they saw on Earth. It has been the seat of British government
and the living quarters of monarchs...the site of renown political intrigue, and the
repository of the Crown Jewels.... It has housed lions, bears, and (to this day) flightless
ravens...not to mention notorious traitors and framed members of court, lords and
ministers, clergymen and knights."
Capital Punishment in Modern British Law and Culture: by T.P. Uschanov. Circa 1994.
Provides a history of the death penalty and its abolition in the United Kingdom under the
1965 Murder Act, with a discussion of recent attempt to reintroduce the death penalty in
Britain.