ABSTRACT
This chapter divides into seven sections: a brief history of the death penalty in the United States, the United States Supreme Court and the death penalty, methods of execution, deterrence, incapacitation and economic costs, miscarriages of justice, and arbitrariness and discrimination. Several prominent abolitionists voiced their objections to capital punishment during the colonial era. The leading abolitionist during this period was Dr. Benjamin Rush, a physician and prison reformer from Philadelphia. In 2008, Yang and Lester conducted a meta-analysis of studies on the deterrent effect of capital punishment published in peer-reviewed journals after 1975. An alternative to capital punishment, and one that eliminates entirely the possibility of executing an innocent person, is true life imprisonment without opportunity of parole (LWOP). LWOP also eliminates entirely the possibility of an LWOP inmate killing outside of prison.
