Update on the Death Penalty in the United States

How have trends regarding the death penalty in the United States changed since the mid-1990s, when the movie Dead Man Walking was released.

What do the examples of states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and Iowa indicate about the history of the death penalty in the United States?

Why were there no executions anywhere in the United States between 1968 and 1977?

Why were two Supreme Court decisions about death penalty laws in Georgia significant for the future of capital punishment in this country?

Why do contemporary analyses of the death penalty in the United States begin with 1976 or 1977?

What are the three legal systems in which one can receive the death penalty in the U.S. today? Which has seen the most and which the least executions in the modern period?

What significance do these five states—Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Florida, and Missouri—have for incidence of executions in the United States today?

What do these three states—Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa—illustrate about death penalty in the United States today?

Which is true about the use and retention of the death penalty in the U.S. over the last decade?

Does a having large death row population correspond to a high number of executions in the United States today?

How do numbers of death sentences in the United States today compare with the number in the late 1990s?

How do the number of exonerations of persons sentenced to death in the United States compare to the number of executions since 1976?

How do race, poverty, geography, and gender affect one’s likelihood of being sentenced to death in the United States?

What difference does race make in death sentences in the U.S. today?

How has the Supreme Court restricted the application of the death penalty to juveniles and the intellectually disabled?