The Death Penalty
In the United States, the use of the death penalty is steadily declining, although we can see from this chart that the United States is still among a group of countries that it would hardly consid
er models in regard to their respect for human rights. Note that the figures for China and Iran are mere estimates, since China does not publish such figures and Iran's appear to be higher than those publicly available. North Korea does not publish its data, and it is extraordinarily difficult to gain information about this issue within North Korea. The current fighting in the Middle East suggests that these numbers will change dramatically in some cases.
The data from Pew Research shows that the number of death sentences in the United States is declining dramatically, but number of prisoners remaining on death row is still extraordinarily high--well over three thousand, with California having the highest number (740). More prisoners die of old age than execution on California's death row.
The American public remains divided about the issue of capital punishment, although a majority still favor its use according to a 2015 Pew poll. As Pew has pointed out in another poll, many religious leaders have spoken out against capital punishment, including the Catholic bishops, their followers do not necessarily agree with them. Very few religious groups explicitly favor the death penalty.
In addition to covering all the standard topics, this book was, I think, the first in which an ethical theory book to consider Islam, the Navajo religion, and Buddhism. It was one of the earliest with a sympathetic discussion of the ethics of diversity, a topic now spanning two chapters. The concluding chapter is devotedto applying ethical theories to abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty.
in 1987). He is a gifted writer. His first book, One L, the story o16his first year at Harvard Law School, instantly became a best seller while he was still in law school and remains required reading at manylaw schools around the country. In Illinois, he served on Governor Ryan''s commission on the death penalty in Illinois, He began as "agnostic" about the death penalty, not sure of where he stood. By the end of the process after examining and discussing a number of death penalty cases, he found himself opposed in practice to the death penalty. Some individuals undoubtedly deserve the death penalty because their crimes are so horrendous, but Turow concludes that there is little change that the judicial system could successfully select those few individuals and only those individuals for execution. Perhaps in a perfect world in regard to judicial processes, the death penalty could be fairly administered, but in the real world in whcih we live that is nto so: we will execute some who are innocent and some whose crimes do not meet the standards of horror, and we will not execute some of the worst of the worst because of plea deals and other aspects of the sytem.
"
. 
