ABSTRACT
What crimes should be punishable by death? Should all who commit those crimes be eligible for the death penalty or do certain classes of offenders—for example, juveniles, the intellectually disabled, and perhaps others—share characteristics that should render them altogether exempt from consideration for capital punishment? Should decisions about capital punishment for offenses and offenders be left to legislatures, and to the sentencing authority in individual trials, or does the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments flatly prohibit the death penalty in some cases?
