Capital Punishment: Death as Justice?

Vocabulary practice flashcards focusing on the legal history, key cases, procedural milestones, and systemic issues surrounding capital punishment in the UK, USA, and globally.

Capitalis

The Latin root word meaning 'of the head' from which the term 'capital' is derived, originating from beheading as a common execution method in ancient times.

The 'Bloody Code'

A penal system in $18\text{th}$-century England characterized by public and 'carnivalesque' executions, where the number of offences eligible for the death penalty increased significantly to at least $223$ capital offences by $1810$.

Capital Punishment Within Prisons Act, 1868

Legislation that ended public executions in the UK by relocating them inside prison walls; Section $6$ required that the body of every executed offender be buried within prison grounds.

Mahmood Mattan

A $28$-year-old man who was the final person executed at HMP Cardiff on September $3$, $1952$; his wrongful murder conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in February $1998$, $35$ years after his death.

Ruth Ellis

A mother of two who became the last woman to be hanged in Britain when she was executed on July $13$, $1955$, outside Holloway Prison for shooting dead her abusive boyfriend.

Peter Anthony Allen and Gwynne Owen Evans

The last two individuals executed in the United Kingdom, hanged on August $13$, $1964$, at Walton Prison in Liverpool and Strangeways Prison in Manchester, respectively, for the murder of John Alan West.

Children Act 1908

British legislation establishing that individuals under the age of $16$ could no longer be sentenced to death or executed.

Homicide Act 1957

British statute that restricted the death penalty to specific, limited categories of murder rather than all murder convictions.

Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965

A UK parliamentary act that suspended capital punishment for murder, a reform that the House of Commons voted to make permanent in $1969$.

Human Rights Act 1998

UK legislation incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights, formally abolishing the death penalty for all crimes in the United Kingdom, including treason and piracy.

Modern Death Penalty Era (USA)

The period of US capital punishment initiated in $1976$, with the first execution occurring in $1977$, totaling $1686$ executions through $2026$, peaking at $98$ executions in $1999$.

Federal Execution Spree (2020–2021)

A rush of federal executions during the final days of the Trump administration, carrying out the deaths of Brandon Bernard, Alfred Bourgeois, Lisa Montgomery, Cory Johnson, and Dustin John Higgs between December $2020$ and January $2021$.

Biden Capital Sentence Commutations

The presidential clemency action in December $2024$ that commuted the capital sentences of $37$ out of $40$ federal death row inmates to life imprisonment without parole.

Interracial Execution Disparity

A systemic racial imbalance in US death penalty cases where $315$ Black defendants were executed for killing white victims, compared to only $21$ white defendants executed for killing Black victims.

Prosecutorial Capital Bias (Phillips, 2010)

Findings showing prosecutors are more likely to seek death when the victim is white-American, of high social status, previously unknown to the offender, and when the defendant relies on a public defender.

Race-of-Victim Sentencing Bias

Statistical disparity demonstrating that more than $75\%$ of victims in executed cases are white (despite being $50\%$ of all murder victims nationally), with death sentence odds rising by $97\%$ in Louisiana and $3.5$ times in North Carolina for white victims.

Lethal Injection

A primary execution method adopted to simulate a clinical medical procedure ('just sleep then death' as proposed by Bill Wiseman in $1977$), despite Sarat ($2015$) finding that over $7\%$ of all lethal injections are visibly botched.

Romell Broom

An Ohio death row inmate whose $2009$ lethal injection was aborted after two hours and $18$ failed puncture attempts; his rescheduled execution was repeatedly delayed due to drug unavailability before he died in December $2020$.

Firing Squad

An execution method reinstated by Utah in $2015$ as a backup and utilized in states such as South Carolina, argued by proponents to be the quickest and least painful method with trained marksmen.

Allen Lee Davis

A Florida prisoner whose $1999$ electrocution was severely botched, suffering extensive burns to his head, leg, and groin while bleeding profusely from the nose, prompting the state Supreme Court to publish photographs of the aftermath.

Death Row Syndrome

A psychological condition characterized by Smith ($2008$) resulting from prolonged isolation, $23$ hours a day confined to cells, restricted visitation, and decades spent awaiting execution under extreme sensory and social deprivation.

Nick Yarris

An American prisoner sentenced to death in $1983$ for the murder of Linda Craig who spent $22$ years on death row before being fully exonerated by DNA evidence in $2003$.

Botched Executions (Sarat, 2014)

A historical study examining every American execution from $1890$ to $2010$, concluding that at least $3\%$ of all executions suffered technical failures or unintended procedural errors.

Amnesty International Motives for Abolition

Five key arguments against capital punishment formulated in $2024$: it is irreversible and prone to error, does not deter crime, operates within skewed legal systems, is discriminatory, and is manipulated as a political tool.