essay on pro death penalty

Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty

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The death penalty deters future murders.

Retribution

A just society requires the taking of a life for a life.

The risk of executing the innocent precludes the use of the death penalty.

Arbitrariness & Discrimination

The death penalty is applied unfairly and should not be used.

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Moral arguments

Utilitarian arguments, practical arguments, the abolition movement.

• Capital punishment in the early 21st century

Arguments for and against capital punishment

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• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Capital Punishment
• Santa Clara University - Capital Punishment: Our Duty or Our Doom?
• Cornell Law School - Legal Information Institute - Death penalty
• capital punishment - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• capital punishment - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

Capital punishment has long engendered considerable debate about both its morality and its effect on criminal behaviour. Contemporary arguments for and against capital punishment fall under three general headings: moral , utilitarian, and practical.

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Supporters of the death penalty believe that those who commit murder , because they have taken the life of another, have forfeited their own right to life. Furthermore, they believe, capital punishment is a just form of retribution , expressing and reinforcing the moral indignation not only of the victim’s relatives but of law-abiding citizens in general. By contrast, opponents of capital punishment, following the writings of Cesare Beccaria (in particular On Crimes and Punishments [1764]), argue that, by legitimizing the very behaviour that the law seeks to repress—killing—capital punishment is counterproductive in the moral message it conveys. Moreover, they urge, when it is used for lesser crimes, capital punishment is immoral because it is wholly disproportionate to the harm done. Abolitionists also claim that capital punishment violates the condemned person’s right to life and is fundamentally inhuman and degrading.

Although death was prescribed for crimes in many sacred religious documents and historically was practiced widely with the support of religious hierarchies , today there is no agreement among religious faiths, or among denominations or sects within them, on the morality of capital punishment. Beginning in the last half of the 20th century, increasing numbers of religious leaders—particularly within Judaism and Roman Catholicism—campaigned against it. Capital punishment was abolished by the state of Israel for all offenses except treason and crimes against humanity, and Pope John Paul II condemned it as “cruel and unnecessary.”

Supporters of capital punishment also claim that it has a uniquely potent deterrent effect on potentially violent offenders for whom the threat of imprisonment is not a sufficient restraint. Opponents, however, point to research that generally has demonstrated that the death penalty is not a more effective deterrent than the alternative sanction of life or long-term imprisonment.

There also are disputes about whether capital punishment can be administered in a manner consistent with justice . Those who support capital punishment believe that it is possible to fashion laws and procedures that ensure that only those who are really deserving of death are executed. By contrast, opponents maintain that the historical application of capital punishment shows that any attempt to single out certain kinds of crime as deserving of death will inevitably be arbitrary and discriminatory. They also point to other factors that they think preclude the possibility that capital punishment can be fairly applied, arguing that the poor and ethnic and religious minorities often do not have access to good legal assistance, that racial prejudice motivates predominantly white juries in capital cases to convict black and other nonwhite defendants in disproportionate numbers, and that, because errors are inevitable even in a well-run criminal justice system, some people will be executed for crimes they did not commit. Finally, they argue that, because the appeals process for death sentences is protracted, those condemned to death are often cruelly forced to endure long periods of uncertainty about their fate.

Under the influence of the European Enlightenment , in the latter part of the 18th century there began a movement to limit the scope of capital punishment. Until that time a very wide range of offenses, including even common theft, were punishable by death—though the punishment was not always enforced , in part because juries tended to acquit defendants against the evidence in minor cases. In 1794 the U.S. state of Pennsylvania became the first jurisdiction to restrict the death penalty to first-degree murder, and in 1846 the state of Michigan abolished capital punishment for all murders and other common crimes. In 1863 Venezuela became the first country to abolish capital punishment for all crimes, including serious offenses against the state (e.g., treason and military offenses in time of war). San Marino was the first European country to abolish the death penalty, doing so in 1865; by the early 20th century several other countries, including the Netherlands, Norway , Sweden , Denmark , and Italy , had followed suit (though it was reintroduced in Italy under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini ). By the mid-1960s some 25 countries had abolished the death penalty for murder, though only about half of them also had abolished it for offenses against the state or the military code. For example, Britain abolished capital punishment for murder in 1965, but treason, piracy, and military crimes remained capital offenses until 1998.

During the last third of the 20th century, the number of abolitionist countries increased more than threefold. These countries, together with those that are “de facto” abolitionist—i.e., those in which capital punishment is legal but not exercised—now represent more than half the countries of the world. One reason for the significant increase in the number of abolitionist states was that the abolition movement was successful in making capital punishment an international human rights issue, whereas formerly it had been regarded as solely an internal matter for the countries concerned.

In 1971 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution that, “in order fully to guarantee the right to life, provided for in…the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” called for restricting the number of offenses for which the death penalty could be imposed, with a view toward abolishing it altogether. This resolution was reaffirmed by the General Assembly in 1977. Optional protocols to the European Convention on Human Rights (1983) and to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1989) have been established, under which countries party to the convention and the covenant undertake not to carry out executions. The Council of Europe (1994) and the EU (1998) established as a condition of membership in their organizations the requirement that prospective member countries suspend executions and commit themselves to abolition. This decision had a remarkable impact on the countries of central and eastern Europe , prompting several of them—e.g., the Czech Republic , Hungary , Romania , Slovakia , and Slovenia—to abolish capital punishment.

In the 1990s many African countries—including Angola, Djibouti, Mozambique, and Namibia—abolished capital punishment, though most African countries retained it. In South Africa , which formerly had one of the world’s highest execution rates, capital punishment was outlawed in 1995 by the Constitutional Court, which declared that it was incompatible with the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment and with “a human rights culture.”

5 Death Penalty Essays Everyone Should Know

Capital punishment is an ancient practice. It’s one that human rights defenders strongly oppose and consider as inhumane and cruel. In 2019, Amnesty International reported the lowest number of executions in about a decade. Most executions occurred in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt . The United States is the only developed western country still using capital punishment. What does this say about the US? Here are five essays about the death penalty everyone should read:

“When We Kill”

By: Nicholas Kristof | From: The New York Times 2019

In this excellent essay, Pulitizer-winner Nicholas Kristof explains how he first became interested in the death penalty. He failed to write about a man on death row in Texas. The man, Cameron Todd Willingham, was executed in 2004. Later evidence showed that the crime he supposedly committed – lighting his house on fire and killing his three kids – was more likely an accident. In “When We Kill,” Kristof puts preconceived notions about the death penalty under the microscope. These include opinions such as only guilty people are executed, that those guilty people “deserve” to die, and the death penalty deters crime and saves money. Based on his investigations, Kristof concludes that they are all wrong.

Nicholas Kristof has been a Times columnist since 2001. He’s the winner of two Pulitizer Prices for his coverage of China and the Darfur genocide.

“An Inhumane Way of Death”

By: Willie Jasper Darden, Jr.

Willie Jasper Darden, Jr. was on death row for 14 years. In his essay, he opens with the line, “Ironically, there is probably more hope on death row than would be found in most other places.” He states that everyone is capable of murder, questioning if people who support capital punishment are just as guilty as the people they execute. Darden goes on to say that if every murderer was executed, there would be 20,000 killed per day. Instead, a person is put on death row for something like flawed wording in an appeal. Darden feels like he was picked at random, like someone who gets a terminal illness. This essay is important to read as it gives readers a deeper, more personal insight into death row.

Willie Jasper Darden, Jr. was sentenced to death in 1974 for murder. During his time on death row, he advocated for his innocence and pointed out problems with his trial, such as the jury pool that excluded black people. Despite worldwide support for Darden from public figures like the Pope, Darden was executed in 1988.

“We Need To Talk About An Injustice”

By: Bryan Stevenson | From: TED 2012

This piece is a transcript of Bryan Stevenson’s 2012 TED talk, but we feel it’s important to include because of Stevenson’s contributions to criminal justice. In the talk, Stevenson discusses the death penalty at several points. He points out that for years, we’ve been taught to ask the question, “Do people deserve to die for their crimes?” Stevenson brings up another question we should ask: “Do we deserve to kill?” He also describes the American death penalty system as defined by “error.” Somehow, society has been able to disconnect itself from this problem even as minorities are disproportionately executed in a country with a history of slavery.

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, and author. He’s argued in courts, including the Supreme Court, on behalf of the poor, minorities, and children. A film based on his book Just Mercy was released in 2019 starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx.

“I Know What It’s Like To Carry Out Executions”

By: S. Frank Thompson | From: The Atlantic 2019

In the death penalty debate, we often hear from the family of the victims and sometimes from those on death row. What about those responsible for facilitating an execution? In this opinion piece, a former superintendent from the Oregon State Penitentiary outlines his background. He carried out the only two executions in Oregon in the past 55 years, describing it as having a “profound and traumatic effect” on him. In his decades working as a correctional officer, he concluded that the death penalty is not working . The United States should not enact federal capital punishment.

Frank Thompson served as the superintendent of OSP from 1994-1998. Before that, he served in the military and law enforcement. When he first started at OSP, he supported the death penalty. He changed his mind when he observed the protocols firsthand and then had to conduct an execution.

“There Is No Such Thing As Closure on Death Row”

By: Paul Brown | From: The Marshall Project 2019

This essay is from Paul Brown, a death row inmate in Raleigh, North Carolina. He recalls the moment of his sentencing in a cold courtroom in August. The prosecutor used the term “closure” when justifying a death sentence. Who is this closure for? Brown theorizes that the prosecutors are getting closure as they end another case, but even then, the cases are just a way to further their careers. Is it for victims’ families? Brown is doubtful, as the death sentence is pursued even when the families don’t support it. There is no closure for Brown or his family as they wait for his execution. Vivid and deeply-personal, this essay is a must-read for anyone who wonders what it’s like inside the mind of a death row inmate.

Paul Brown has been on death row since 2000 for a double murder. He is a contributing writer to Prison Writers and shares essays on topics such as his childhood, his life as a prisoner, and more.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Capital Punishment and the Death Penalty Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Criminal Law and Procedure

Historical development of criminal law, difference between legal and social parameters in criminal law, elements of a crime.

In most nations, there are two or three sorts of courts that have authority over criminal cases. A single expert judge typically handles petty offenses, but two or more lay justices in England may sit in a Magistrates’ Court. In many nations, more severe cases are heard by panels of two or more judges (Lee, 2022). Such panels are frequently made up of attorneys and lay magistrates, as in Germany, where two laypeople sit alongside one to three jurists. The French cour d’assises comprises three professional judges and nine lay assessors who hear severe criminal cases. Such mixed courts of professionals and ordinary residents convene and make decisions by majority voting, with lawyers and laypeople having one vote.

The United States Constitution permits every defendant in a non-petty matter the right to be prosecuted before a jury; the defendant may forgo this privilege and have the decision decided by a professional court judge. To guarantee the court’s fairness, the defense and prosecution can dismiss or challenge members whom they prove to be prejudiced (Lee, 2022). Furthermore, the defense and, in the United States, the prosecution has the right of vexatious challenge, which allows it to confront several participants without providing a reason.

One of the most primitive texts illustrating European illegitimate law appeared after 1066, when William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, conquered England. By the eighteenth century, European law addressed criminal behavior specifically, and the idea of trying lawbreakers in a courtroom context began to transpire (Zalewski, 2019). The English administration recognized a scheme referred to as common law, which is the method through which regulations that regulate a group of people are established and updated. Corporate law relates to public and illegal cases and is grounded on the establishment, adjustment, and expansion of laws by adjudicators as they make permissible judgments. These decisions become standards, prompting the consequences of impending cases.

Misdemeanors, offences, and sedition are the three types of unlawful offenses presented before the courts. Misdemeanors are petty infringements decided by penalties or confiscation of property; some are penalized by less than a year in prison. Offences are meaningfully more heinous felonies with heavier consequences, such as incarceration in a federal or state prison for a year or more. Treason is characterized as anything that breaches the country’s allegiance. Felonious law changes and is often susceptible to modification based on the ethics and standards of the period.

Parameters are values with changing attributes, principles, or dimensions that may be defined and monitored. A parameter is usually picked from a data set because it is critical to understanding the situation. A parameter aids in comprehending a situation, whereas a parameter defines the situation’s bounds (Doorn et al., 2018). The critical concept of the Legal parameter is that behaviors are restricted by unspoken criteria of deviance that are agreeable to both the controlled and those that govern them. Impartiality, fairness, and morality are all ideals conveyed by social justice, and they all have their origins in the overarching concept of law (Doorn et al., 2018). From a social standpoint, it involves various topics such as abortion, cremation, bio-genetics, human decency, racial justice, worker’s rights, economic freedom, and environmental concerns.

All crimes in the United States may be subdivided into distinct aspects under criminal law. These components of an offense must then be established beyond possible suspicion in a court of law to convict the offender (Ormerod & Laird, 2021). Many delinquencies need the manifestation of three crucial rudiments: a criminal act, criminal intent, and the concurrence of the initial two. Depending on the offense, a fourth factor called causality may be present.

First is the criminal act (Actus Reus): actus reus, which translates as “guilty act,” refers to any criminal act of an act that occurs. To be considered an unlawful act, an act must be intentional and controlled by the defendant (Ormerod & Laird, 2021). If an accused act on nature, they may not be held responsible for their conduct. Words can be deemed illegal activities and result in accusations such as perjury, verbal harassment, conspiracy, or incitement. On the contrary, concepts are not considered illegal acts but might add to the second component: intent.

Second is crime intent (Mens Rea): for a felonious offense to be categorized as a misconduct, the culprit’s mental circumstance must be reflected. According to the code of mens rea, a suspect can only be considered remorseful if there is felonious intent (Ormerod & Laird, 2021). Third is concurrence, which refers to the coexistence of intent to commit a crime and illicit behavior. If there is proof that the mens rea preceded or happened simultaneously with the actus reus, the burden of proving it is met. Fourth is causation: this fourth ingredient of an offense is present in most criminal cases, but not all. The link concerning the defendant’s act and the final consequence is called causation. The trial must establish outside a possible suspicion that the perpetrator’s acts triggered the resultant criminality, which is usually detriment or damage.

The risk of executing an innocent man cannot be entirely removed despite precautions and protection to prevent capital punishment. If the death penalty was replaced with a statement of life imprisonment, the money saved as a result of abolishing capital punishment may be spent in community development programs. The harshness of the penalty is not as efficient as the guarantee that the penalty will be given in discouraging crime. In other terms, if the penalty dissuades crime, there is no incentive to prefer the stiffer sentence.

Doorn, N., Gardoni, P., & Murphy, C. (2018). A multidisciplinary definition and evaluation of resilience: The role of social justice in defining resilience . Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure , 4 (3), pp. 112–123. Web.

Lee, S.-O. (2022). Analysis of the major criminal procedure cases in 2021 . The Korean Association of Criminal Procedure Law , 14 (1), pp. 139–198. Web.

Ormerod, D., & Laird, K. (2021). 2. The elements of a crime: Actus reus . Smith, Hogan, and Ormerod’s Criminal Law , pp 26–87. Web.

Rancourt, M. A., Ouellet, C., & Dufresne, Y. (2020). Is the death penalty debate really dead? contrasting capital punishment support in Canada and the United States . Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy , 20 (1), 536–562. Web.

Stetler, R. (2020). The history of mitigation in death penalty cases . Social Work, Criminal Justice, and the Death Penalty , pp. 34–45. Web.

Wheeler, C. H. (2018). Rights in conflict: The clash between abolishing the death penalty and delivering justice to the victims . International Criminal Law Review , 18 (2), 354–375. Web.

Zalewski, W. (2019). Double-track system in Polish criminal law. Political and criminal assumptions, history, contemporary references . Acta Poloniae Historica , 118 , pp 39. Web.

• Different Types of Crimes: Felonies and Misdemeanors
• Constructive, Reckless and Gross Negligence Manslaughter
• Crimes Against Property, Persons, and Public Order
• Capital Punishment Is Morally and Legally Wrong
• The Significance of Capital Punishment in the UAE
• “Dead Man Walking” by Sister Helen Prejean
• The Legality and the Processes of the Death Penalty
• Criminal Sentencing and the Eighth Amendment
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, December 17). Capital Punishment and the Death Penalty. https://ivypanda.com/essays/capital-punishment-and-the-death-penalty/

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Should the Death Penalty Be Legal?

• History of the Death Penalty

Practiced for much, if not all, of human history, the death penalty (also called capital punishment) is the “execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense,” according to Roger Hood, professor at the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Oxford.

Amnesty International lists the United States as just one of 55 countries globally with a legal death penalty for ordinary crimes as of May 2023. Another nine countries reserve the death penalty for “exceptional crimes such as crimes under military law or crimes committed in exceptional circumstances,” according to Amnesty International. Meanwhile, 112 countries have abolished the death penalty legally and 23 have abolished the punishment in practice. Read more history…

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1 The death penalty provides the justice and closure families and victims deserve. Many relatives of murder victims believe the death penalty is just and necessary for their lives to move forward. Jason Johnson, whose father was sentenced to death for killing his mother, states: “[I will go to see him executed] not to see him die [but] just to see my family actually have some closure… He’s an evil human being. He can talk Christianity and all that. That is all my father is. That’s all he’s ever been, is a con man… If he found redemption, that doesn’t matter, that’s between him and God. His forgiveness is to come from the Lord and his redemption is to come from the Lord, not the government. The Bible also says, ‘An eye for an eye.’” [ 17 ] Phyllis Loya, mother of police officer Larry Lasater who was killed in the line of duty, states, “I will live to see the execution of my son’s murderer. People [need] closure, and I think it means different things to different people. What it would mean for me is that my fight for justice for my son would be complete when his sentence, which was [handed down] by a Contra Costa County jury and by a Contra Costa County judge, would be carried out as it should be.” [ 18 ] While some argue that there is no “closure” to be had in such tragedies and via the death penalty, victim families think differently. Often the families of victims have to endure for years detailed accounts in the press and social media of their loved one’s gory murder while the murderer sits out a life sentence or endlessly appeals their conviction. A just execution puts an end to that cycle. As Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor explains, “The family of each murder victim suffers unspeakable pain when their loved one is murdered. Those wounds are torn open many times during the following decades, as the investigations, trials, appeals, and pardon and parole board hearings occur. Each stage brings torment and yet a desire for justice for the heinous treatment of their family member. The family feels that the suffering and loss of life of the victim and their own pain are forgotten when the murderer is portrayed in the media as a sympathetic character. The family knows that the execution of the murderer cannot bring their loved one back. They suspect it will not bring them ‘closure’ or ‘finality’ or ‘peace,’ but there is justice and perhaps an end to the ongoing wounding by ‘the murderer and then the system.’” [ 19 ] Read More

Pro 2 The death penalty prevents additional crime. If not a deterrent to would-be murderers, at the very least, when carried out, the death penalty prevents convicted murderers from repeating their crimes. “Perhaps the most straightforward argument for the death penalty is that it saves innocent lives by preventing convicted murderers from killing again. If the abolitionists had not succeeded in obtaining a temporary moratorium on death penalties from 1972 to 1976, [Kenneth Allen] McDuff would have been executed, and Colleen Reed and at least eight other young women would be alive today,” explains Paul Cassell, former U.S. District Judge. [ 15 ] Kenneth Allen McDuff was convicted and sentenced to death in 1966 for the murders of three teenagers and the rape of one. However, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty nationwide in 1972 ( Furman v. Georgia ), leading to a reduced sentence and McDuff being released on parole in 1989. An estimated three days later, he began a crime spree: torturing, raping, and murdering at least six women in Texas before being arrested again on May 4, 1992, and sentenced to death a second time. Had McDuff been executed as justice demanded for the first three murders, at least six murders would have been prevented. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] Considering recidivism rates, how many more murders and associated crimes of kidnaping, rape, and torture, among others could have been deterred had the death penalty been imposed on any number of murderers? Read More

Pro 3 The death penalty is the only moral and just punishment for the worst crimes. Talion law ( lex talionis in Latin), or retributive law, is perhaps best known as the Biblical imperative: “Anyone who inflicts a permanent injury on his or her neighbor shall receive the same in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The same injury that one gives another shall be inflicted in return.” [ 8 ] [ 9 ] The word “retribution” comes from the Latin re + tribuo , or “I pay back.” In order for those who commit the worst crimes to pay their debts to society, the death penalty must be employed as punishment, or the debt has not been paid. [ 10 ] “ Retribution is an expression of society’s right to make a moral judgment by imposing a punishment on a wrongdoer befitting the crime he has committed,” says Charles Stimson of the Heritage Foundation. Therefore, “the death penalty should be available for the worst of the worst,” regardless of the race or gender of the victim or perpetrator. [ 11 ] Thus, “retributionists who support the death penalty typically do not wish to expand the list of offenses for which it may be imposed. Their support for the death penalty is only for crimes defined as particularly heinous, because only such criminals deserve to be put to death. Under lex talionis it is impermissible to execute those whose crimes do not warrant the ultimate sanction,” explains Jon’a F. Meyer, professor at Rutgers University. “The uniform application of retributive punishment is central to the philosophy.” [ 12 ] As Robert Blecker, professor emeritus at New York Law School, further clarifies, “retribution is not simply revenge . Revenge may be limitless and misdirected at the undeserving, as with collective punishment. Retribution, on the other hand, can help restore a moral balance. It demands that punishment must be limited and proportional. Retributivists like myself just as strongly oppose excessive punishment as we urge adequate punishment: as much, but no more than what’s deserved. Thus I endorse capital punishment only for the worst of the worst criminals.” [ 13 ] “Sometimes, justice is dismissing a charge, granting a plea bargain, expunging a past conviction, seeking a prison sentence, or — in a very few cases, for the worst of the worst murderers — sometimes, justice is death…A drug cartel member who murders a rival cartel member faces life in prison without parole. What if he murders two, three, or 12 people? Or the victim is a child or multiple children? What if the murder was preceded by torture or rape? How about a serial killer? Or a terrorist who kills dozens, hundreds or thousands?” asks George Brauchler, District Attorney of the 18th Judicial District in Colorado. The nature of the crime, and the depth of its depravity, should matter. [ 14 ] Read More

Con 1 Not only is the death penalty not a deterrent to crime, it is very expensive. Advocates for capital punishment long argued that it deters crime, other criminal acts, but according to the ACLU, “There is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws. And states that have abolished capital punishment show no significant changes in either crime or murder rates.” [24] “People commit murders largely in the heat of passion, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or because they are mentally ill, giving little or no thought to the possible consequences of their acts,” the ACLU continues. “The few murderers who plan their crimes beforehand… intend and expect to avoid punishment altogether by not getting caught. Some self-destructive individuals may even hope they will be caught and executed.” [ 24 ] Further, the death penalty is significantly more expensive than life-without-parole, the oft-shunned alternative penalty. The death penalty system costs California $137 million per year while a system with lifelong imprisonment as the maximum penalty would cost $11.5 million, an almost 92% decrease in expense. The statistics are lower but comparable across other states including Kansas, Tennessee, and Maryland. [ 25 ] And this money has to come from somewhere, most often at the expense of taxpayers. In Texas, executions are funded “by raising property tax rates and by reducing public safety expenditure. Property crime rises as a consequence of the latter,” explains Jeffrey Miron of the Cato Institute. [ 26 ] Read More

Con 2 The death penalty is steeped in poor legal assistance and racial bias. The Equal Justice Initiative explains that the “death penalty system treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent,” resulting in the punishment being ”mostly imposed on poor people who cannot afford to hire an effective lawyer” while “people of color are more likely to be prosecuted for capital murder, sentenced to death, and executed, especially if the victim in the case is white.” [ 20 ] The American Bar Association sets minimum qualifications for capital case lawyers, yet most death penalty states do not require lawyers to meet even those requirements, leaving defendants without the means to hire a private lawyer to face the court with inadequate counsel. [ 20 ] Further, erroneous eyewitness identifications, false and coerced confessions, false or misleading forensic evidence, misconduct by police, prosecutors, or other officials, and incentivized witnesses taint death row cases. [ 21 ] For every eight people on death row, one of them has later been found innocent. [ 20 ] The death penalty is inconsistently applied and most often applied to Black men who have killed a white person. While Black people made up only 13% of the American population in 2018, 41% of people on death row and 34% of those executed were Black. [ 20 ] This inequality should not be surprising considering the roots of the death penalty. Bryan Stevenson, capital defense attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, refers to the death penalty as the “stepchild of lynching .” [ 22 ] As journalist Josh Marcus explains, “Following the end of the Reconstruction period, which saw federal troops occupy the former Confederate states and enforce new legal and constitutional protections for Black people, lynching surged in the late 1800s, until it became all but a daily occurrence across America. Lynchings sometimes involved government officials like local law enforcement, and government officials began arguing for capital punishment as an alternative. It would still satiate the public’s appetite for violence against Black people, but under the auspices of the law, which at the time allowed for explicit racial segregation in all areas of life.” [ 22 ] A survey of executions found that 80% of executions occur in former Confederate states and mirror historic lynching sites. [ 22 ] [ 23 ] “We should be beyond the point of killing people for killing people. It’s so archaic,” concludes Rachel Sutphin, whose father Eric, a Deputy Sheriff in Virginia, was killed by an escaped prisoner who was, in turn, executed by lethal injection. [ 23 ] Read More

Con 3 The death penalty is immoral and amounts to torture. Many religions , from Catholicism to Judaism, not only oppose the death penalty but also call for its worldwide abolition. “Murder is calculated, unjustified and intentional taking of life. When we, under the supposed color of law, deliberate, decide, and plan the purposeful extinguishing of human life, we commit murder. The death penalty is murder,” explains Rabbi and former Assistant Ohio Public Defender Benjamin Zober. “We are commanded, ‘justice, justice, shall you pursue.’ (Deut. 16:20) We cannot do this by taking lives, acting in anger, or vengeance, or by creating more bloodshed, trauma, and pain…. There is a world in every person, every life…. ‘Anyone who destroys a life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed an entire world; and anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.’ (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5).” [ 27 ] Robert Schentrup, brother of 16-year-old Carmen who died in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 says, “This is the part where pundits on TV will invoke the name of my sister to support the murder of another human being. This is the part where people try to convince me that vengeance should make me feel better and that it will bring me ‘closure’ so that ‘I can continue to heal. But I do not … care, because my sister is dead, and killing someone else will not bring her back.” [ 28 ] Further, while the death penalty ultimately takes a life, the condemned person is subjected to what is otherwise considered physical and psychological torture before death. As law professor John Bessler explains “The death penalty, in fact, always and inevitably inflicts severe pain and suffering rising to the level of torture. That’s because capital charges and death sentences systematically threaten individuals with death (and, when death warrants against individuals are carried out, kill), with torture—prohibited by various domestic laws in addition to the bar in international law—considered to be the aggravated form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” [ 29 ] Certain methods of execution are especially tortuous: consider the 2024 nitrogen hypoxia execution of Kenneth Smith, which inflicted an intense struggle for air before he died 22 minutes after the execution began. In the United States, cruel punishment is explicitly banned by the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment . [ 29 ] [ 30 ] Read More

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Home Essay Samples Social Issues Death Penalty

Examining the Death Penalty: An Argumentative Perspective

Table of contents, death penalty arguments: deterrence and prevention, ethical considerations: the value of human life, implementation complexities: ensuring fairness, conclusion: weighing the arguments.

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Finding Sources for Death Penalty Research

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One of the most popular topics for an argument essay is the death penalty . When researching a topic for an argumentative essay , accuracy is important, which means the quality of your sources is important.

If you're writing a paper about the death penalty, you can start with this list of sources, which provide arguments for all sides of the topic.

Amnesty International Site

Amnesty International views the death penalty as "the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights." This website provides a gold mine of statistics and the latest breaking news on the subject.

Mental Illness on Death Row

Death Penalty Focus is an organization that aims to bring about the abolition of capital punishment and is a great resource for information. You will find evidence that many of the people executed over the past decades are affected by a form of mental illness or disability.

Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty

This extensive article provides an overview of arguments for and against the death penalty and offers a history of notable events that have shaped the discourse for activists and proponents.

Pro-Death Penalty Links

This page comes from ProDeathPenalty and contains a state-by-state guide to capital punishment resources. You'll also find a list of papers written by students on topics related to capital punishment. 

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Death Penalty Arguments for and against

This essay about the death penalty explores the deeply polarized views on capital punishment through a metaphorical lens, presenting it as a critical issue that stirs moral and ethical debates across cultures and epochs. Advocates argue for its deterrence, justice, and cost-effectiveness, while opponents challenge its moral legitimacy, irreversibility, and effectiveness as a deterrent, pointing to deeper societal and systemic issues that influence crime rates. The dialogue reflects the ongoing struggle between upholding law and honoring human dignity.

How it works

In a tapestry human conversation, a few themes weave an example effort and moral self-examination tangled more, that death stop. Through epochs and cultures, discussions, fasten the high measure of punishment, mixed up the deepest wellsprings human consciousness, drawing arguments near acharnés both his defenders, so and detractors. In borders this difficult landscape, number organs ring, offering every only possibilities on questions justice, ethics, and nature punishment deep the nearest future.

Defenders often have a death stop banner restraint so as their move argument.

Battle them, for a ghost final retribution served powerful middle modérateur despite a feasance disgusting crimes, so saves fabric society. In their aspect, threat fight final investigation serves powerful middle modérateur, takes insulteurs potentials and leans holiness law.

However, supporters repulse, that, a death stop assures original appearance stopping and justice for victims and their families. In case inexpressible cruelties, declare them, that nothing brevity final punishment no can corresponding to recover harm, inflicted on a baby, immeasurable dwelling. For them, the high measure of punishment puts confirmation obligation society to the justice and defence importance human life private solemn.

Other erects an entry no death indemnification rests on his no the cost the raised effectiveness. Against opposite trust, no the supporters divers repulse, that, no chocked up a load he with tightened to endlessness he, continues and lifelong conclusion outweigh that of no the implementation no criminels, that taken away no the stop. Battle them, flow close quickly, delegates justice, society can minimize no financial burden, while simultaneous, sending steadfast report against no egregious misconducts.

Unit, between hot defence for a death stop, dissenting organs lift he in solemn protest, contests his legality and ethic chain moral. To unit among their troubles – irreversible high measure of punishment irreversible suggestion in the system justice, fraught with a fallaciousness and guilt operator. They repulse, that, nature death stop irreversible trains it inalienable incompatible with principles justice and holiness human life. Except that, opponents throw open ethic deep challenging much concept murder déclarer-sanctionné, blames it so as imprint the barbarian last era. Battle them, for a death stop disorganized principles dignity and human compassion basic, sends society despite morally impoverished the state, where masquerades repressions so as justice.

Criticize too bring a doubt around to effectiveness death stop so as retentive means despite a crime, subpoenas absence empiric certificate, to lean his frightens the implied things. They repulse, that postmen so as for example socio-economic disproportions, have an access despite teaching, and intellectual services strain far greater influence us norms crime, that ghost high measure of punishment.

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Death Penalty Arguments For And Against. (2024, Apr 29). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/death-penalty-arguments-for-and-against/

"Death Penalty Arguments For And Against." PapersOwl.com , 29 Apr 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/death-penalty-arguments-for-and-against/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Death Penalty Arguments For And Against . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/death-penalty-arguments-for-and-against/ [Accessed: 15 Jun. 2024]

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"Death Penalty Arguments For And Against," PapersOwl.com , 29-Apr-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/death-penalty-arguments-for-and-against/. [Accessed: 15-Jun-2024]

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The Astonishing Lengths Samuel Alito Will Go to Execute Death Row Inmates

This is part of Opinionpalooza , Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. Alongside Amicus , we kicked things off this year by explaining How Originalism Ate the Law . The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus . (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch !)

At the end of last month, the six-justice conservative majority on the Supreme Court went out of its way again to make clear its fervent support for the death penalty and its hostility to claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in capital cases. In a May 30 decision, the court’s majority used its opinion in Thornell v. Jones to show that it will only grant relief (if it grants relief at all) in cases where capital defense lawyers commit the most extreme and egregious errors.

Danny Lee Jones had been convicted and sentenced to death in Arizona for the 1992 murders of Robert Weaver, his 7-year-old daughter Tisha Weaver, and Robert’s grandmother Katherine Gumina. He killed them during an attempt to steal Weaver’s gun collection, which Jones thought was worth $2,000. Jones blamed his drug use for the crime.

Critically, according to Courthouse News, the public defender who represented Jones

learned that he was oxygen-deprived at birth and had a lithium deficiency—a condition linked to serious psychiatric disorders. Jones’s medical records showed that he was medicated for mood disorders, had attempted suicide and had been admitted to a mental hospital.

But “despite having access to this information,” the Courthouse News report continues, “Jones’s attorney did not further investigate his mental health until after he was convicted.” Jones appealed his sentence, claiming that his Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel had been violated.

While a federal district court dismissed his claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9 th Circuit reversed the decision. It found that the public defender’s performance was deficient and that there was a “reasonable probability” that “Jones would not have received a death sentence” if the full evidence about his mental health had been presented at sentencing.

The state of Arizona appealed to the Supreme Court. That appeal, in front of several justices who treat the death penalty as sacrosanct at the expense of so many constitutional rights, did not go well for Jones. During oral argument , Justice Samuel Alito, who would end up writing the majority opinion, likened the defendant to “Hannibal Lecter.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch, notoriously impatient with death penalty appeals , said that the Jones case “has been lingering for decades.” He suggested that, to resolve the case once and for all, the Supreme Court should take the unusual step of examining the aggravating and mitigating factors itself rather than following the standard procedure of leaving the fact finding necessary to determine whether there was ineffective assistance of counsel to lower courts.

And that is what the court did.

It did so even though, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out in her dissent, the factual record in the Jones case “is complex, contested, and thousands of pages long.” She argued that “‘this is not an appropriate case to reach and settle [a] fact-sensitive issue.’”

“That is particularly true,” Sotomayor explained, “when, as here, the majority in the first instance parses a complex record containing contested medical diagnoses and disputed allegations of abuse and trauma.”

As Gorsuch had urged them to do, his conservative colleagues ignored what Sotomayor called the court’s “usual practice” of not deciding on its own the “predicate factual questions in the first instance.” This deviation from standard procedure showed the lengths to which this pro–death penalty majority will go to clear almost any barrier standing in the way of carrying out executions.

At issue in the Jones case was whether the 9 th Circuit had faithfully applied the standards for judging ineffective assistance of counsel claims laid out by the Supreme Court in its 1984 Strickland v. Washington decision. The Strickland court said that “the benchmark for judging any claim of ineffectiveness must be whether counsel’s conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial (and sentencing proceeding) cannot be relied on as having produced a just result.”

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the Strickland opinion, said that “A convicted defendant’s claim that counsel’s assistance was so defective as to require reversal of a conviction or setting aside of a death sentence requires that the defendant show, first, that counsel’s performance was deficient and, second, that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense so as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial.”

Justice Thurgood Marshall dissented in Strickland . He claimed that the majority had adopted a standard “that is so malleable that, in practice, it will either have no grip at all or will yield excessive variation in the manner in which the Sixth Amendment is interpreted.”

The court, Marshall wrote, “not only abdicated its own responsibility to interpret the Constitution, but also impaired the ability of the lower courts to exercise theirs.”

The way Strickland has been interpreted bears out Marshall’s fears. As Michael L. Perlin and his collaborators wrote in 2019, “Individual post- Strickland cases are striking and, by any metric, bizarre.”

They cite many examples of such bizarre decisions.

“In one case,” they note, “counsel was found to be effective even though he had failed to introduce ballistics evidence showing that the gun taken from the defendant was not the murder weapon. In another, an attorney was found constitutionally adequate to provide representation to a death-eligible defendant notwithstanding the fact that he had been admitted to the bar for only six months and had never tried a jury case. Another lawyer was found constitutionally adequate even where during the middle of the trial he appeared in court intoxicated and spent a night in jail.”

We now know, as law professor Brandon Garrett has argued in Slate, that effective representation in death cases “does not take the ‘best of the best’ or some kind of ‘dream team.’ ”

Instead, as Garrett contends, it just requires “a team of specialist capital defense lawyers and investigators, preferably working in an office, that understand the very different way that a death penalty case must be litigated from its inception.”

Still, one doesn’t have to look far to find examples of the kind of ineffective assistance that occurred in the Jones case. Like Jones , many of those accused of capital crimes are still represented by lawyers who have never tried a capital case.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Jones case sends a chilling message to those defendants.

Acting as if he were a juror or trial judge in the sentencing phase of Jones’ case, Justice Alito decided that “the mitigating evidence Jones presented … ‘would barely have altered the sentencing profile presented to the sentencing judge,’ and it is insufficient to show prejudice.”

Continuing in the same vein, Alito added that “[t]he weakness of Jones’s mitigating evidence contrasts sharply with the strength of the aggravating circumstances. These circumstances—multiple homicides, cruelty, pecuniary motivation, and murder of a child—are given great weight in Arizona.”

But even more troubling than this departure from standard procedure was Alito’s conclusion that the court will find ineffective assistance of counsel only in cases when a lawyer “introduced little, if any, mitigating evidence at the original sentencing.” In his view, defense lawyers in capital cases should be deemed ineffective only if they do nothing, or next to nothing, to try to save their client’s life in the sentencing phase of a capital case.

For Alito and his conservative colleagues, no other mistakes, omissions, or failures to do the things that every capital defense lawyer should do matter. In the end, the  Jones  decision may make it easier for states to turn death sentences into executions, but it is a real setback for the Constitution and its commitment to fairness in capital cases.

Litigating LGBTQI Rights and the Death Penalty in East Africa and the Caribbean

31 Pages Posted:

Salvatore Caserta

University of Copenhagen - iCourts - Centre of Excellence for International Courts

Mikael Madsen

University of Copenhagen - iCourts - Centre of Excellence for International Courts; University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Law

Date Written: June 05, 2024

This article analyses LGBTQI rights and death penalty litigation in the Caribbean and East Africa before and after the establishment of new regional international courts. LGBTQI rights and death penalty are both hard cases fuelled by global movements and litigation strategies that easily clash with local sentiments. For litigation to have impact in such issue areas, the article finds that three elements must align. First, there is a need for new institutional opportunities such as new judicial venues or laws. Secondly, there is a need for coordinated legal strategies that can utilise the available legal venues. Thirdly, there is need for a societal momentum for the cause, or at least the absence of strong political contestation against the cause. In our study, the establishment of new regional courts provided institutional opportunities which could be seized by transnational litigation networks. And as international courts operate on distance from local politics, they created a more neutral international legal opportunity structure. In the two regions and across the two issue-areas studied, these three elements were most clearly aligned regarding death penalty litigation in the Caribbeanand the least regarding LGBTQI litigation in East Africa.

Keywords: Multi-level judicial orders, litigation strategies, death penalty, LGBTQI rights, transnational human rights litigation

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Salvatore Caserta (Contact Author)

University of copenhagen - icourts - centre of excellence for international courts ( email ).

Studiestraede 6 Copenhagen, DK-1455 Denmark

University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Law ( email )

Studiestraede 6 Studiestrade 6 Copenhagen, DK-1455 Denmark

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Death Penalty — Death and Justice by Edward I. Koch: An Analysis

Death and Justice by Edward I. Koch: an Analysis

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Republican leaders in and out of government are publicly pushing to prosecute Democrats as legal retribution for Donald Trump’s felony conviction.

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By Jonathan Swan ,  Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage

Republican allies of Donald J. Trump are calling for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony conviction in New York.

Within hours of a jury finding Mr. Trump guilty last week, the anger congealed into demands for action. Since then, prominent G.O.P. leaders in and out of government have demanded that elected Republicans use every available instrument of power against Democrats, including targeted investigations and prosecutions.

The intensity of anger and open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics. What is different now is the range of Republicans who are saying retaliation is necessary and who are no longer cloaking their intent with euphemisms.

Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump who still helps guide his thinking on policy, blared out a directive on Fox News after a jury found Mr. Trump guilty of falsifying financial records to cover up a 2016 campaign hush-money payment to a porn actress. Mr. Miller posed a series of questions to Republicans at every level, including local district attorneys.

“Is every House committee controlled by Republicans using its subpoena power in every way it needs to right now?” he demanded. “Is every Republican D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?”

“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe with Marxism and beat these Communists,” Mr. Miller said, using the catchall slurs Trump allies routinely use against Democrats.

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The Changing Political Geography of COVID-19 Over the Last Two Years

Over the past two years, the official count of coronavirus deaths in the United States has risen and is now approaching 1 million lives. Large majorities of Americans say they personally know someone who has been hospitalized or died of the coronavirus , and it has impacted – in varying degrees – nearly every aspect of life .

A new Pew Research Center analysis of official reports of COVID-19-related deaths across the country, based on mortality data collected by The New York Times, shows how the dynamics of the pandemic have shifted over the past two years.

A timeline of the shifting geography of the pandemic

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand how the geography of the coronavirus outbreak has changed over its course. For this analysis, we relied on official reports of deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus collected and maintained by The New York Times .

The estimates provided in this report are subject to several sources of error. There may be significant differences between the true number of deaths due to COVID-19 and the official reported counts of those deaths. There may also be variation across the states in the quality and types of data reported. For example, most states report deaths based on the residency of the deceased person rather than the location where they died. The New York Times collects data from many different local health agencies, and this likely leads to some additional measurement error.

This analysis relies on county-level data. Counties in the United States vary widely in their population sizes, so in many places in the essay, we divide counties into approximately equal-sized groups (in terms of their population) for comparability or report on population adjusted death rates rather than total counts of deaths.

The pandemic has rolled across the U.S. unevenly and in waves. Today, the death toll of the pandemic looks very different from how it looked in the early part of 2020 . The first wave (roughly the first 125,000 deaths from March 2020 through June 2020) was largely geographically concentrated in the Northeast and in particular the New York City region. During the summer of 2020, the largest share of the roughly 80,000 deaths that occurred during the pandemic’s second wave were in the southern parts of the country.

The fall and winter months of 2020 and early 2021 were the deadliest of the pandemic to date. More than 370,000 Americans died of COVID-19 between October 2020 and April 2021; the geographic distinctions that characterized the earlier waves became much less pronounced.

By the spring and summer of 2021, the nationwide death rate had slowed significantly, and vaccines were widely available to all adults who wanted them. But starting at the end of the summer, the fourth and fifth waves (marked by new variants of the virus, delta and then omicron) came in quick succession and claimed more than 300,000 lives.

In many cases, the characteristics of communities that were associated with higher death rates at the beginning of the pandemic are now associated with lower death rates (and vice versa). Early in the pandemic, urban areas were disproportionately impacted. During the first wave, the coronavirus death rate in the 10% of the country that lives in the most densely populated counties was more than nine times that of the death rate among the 10% of the population living in the least densely populated counties. In each subsequent wave, however, the nation’s least dense counties have registered higher death rates than the most densely populated places.

Despite the staggering death toll in densely populated urban areas during the first months of the pandemic (an average 36 monthly deaths per 100,000 residents), the overall death rate over the course of the pandemic is slightly higher in the least populated parts of the country (an average monthly 15 deaths per 100,000 among the 10% living in the least densely populated counties vs. 13 per 100,000 among the 10% in the most densely populated counties).

As the relationship between population density and coronavirus death rates has changed over the course of the pandemic, so too has the relationship between counties’ voting patterns and their death rates from COVID-19.

In the spring of 2020, the areas recording the greatest numbers of deaths were much more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. But by the third wave of the pandemic, which began in fall 2020, the pattern had reversed: Counties that voted for Donald Trump over Joe Biden were suffering substantially more deaths from the coronavirus pandemic than those that voted for Biden over Trump. This reversal is likely a result of several factors including differences in mitigation efforts and vaccine uptake, demographic differences, and other differences that are correlated with partisanship at the county level.

During this third wave – which continued into early 2021 – the coronavirus death rate among the 20% of Americans living in counties that supported Trump by the highest margins in 2020 was about 170% of the death rate among the one-in-five Americans living in counties that supported Biden by the largest margins.

As vaccines became more widely available, this discrepancy between “blue” and “red” counties became even larger as the virulent delta strain of the pandemic spread across the country during the summer and fall of 2021, even as the total number of deaths fell somewhat from its third wave peak.

During the fourth wave of the pandemic, death rates in the most pro-Trump counties were about four times what they were in the most pro-Biden counties. When the highly transmissible omicron variant began to spread in the U.S. in late 2021, these differences narrowed substantially. However, death rates in the most pro-Trump counties were still about 180% of what they were in the most pro-Biden counties throughout late 2021 and early 2022.

The cumulative impact of these divergent death rates is a wide difference in total deaths from COVID-19 between the most pro-Trump and most pro-Biden parts of the country. Since the pandemic began, counties representing the 20% of the population where Trump ran up his highest margins in 2020 have experienced nearly 70,000 more deaths from COVID-19 than have the counties representing the 20% of population where Biden performed best. Overall, the COVID-19 death rate in all c ounties Trump won in 2020 is substantially higher than it is in counties Biden won (as of the end of February 2022, 326 per 100,000 in Trump counties and 258 per 100,000 in Biden counties).

Partisan divide in COVID-19 deaths widened as more vaccines became available

Partisan differences in COVID-19 death rates expanded dramatically after the availability of vaccines increased. Unvaccinated people are at far higher risk of death and hospitalization from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and vaccination decisions are strongly associated with partisanship . Among the large majority of counties for which reliable vaccination data exists, counties that supported Trump at higher margins have substantially lower vaccination rates than those that supported Biden at higher margins.

Counties with lower rates of vaccination registered substantially greater death rates during each wave in which vaccines were widely available.

During the fall of 2021 (roughly corresponding to the delta wave), about 10% of Americans lived in counties with adult vaccination rates lower than 40% as of July 2021. Death rates in these low-vaccination counties were about six times as high as death rates in counties where 70% or more of the adult population was vaccinated.

More Americans were vaccinated heading into the winter of 2021 and 2022 (roughly corresponding to the omicron wave), but nearly 10% of the country lived in areas where less than half of the adult population was vaccinated as of November 2021. Death rates in these low-vaccination counties were roughly twice what they were in counties that had 80% or more of their population vaccinated. ( Note: The statistics here reflect the death rates in the county as a whole, not rates for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, though individual-level data finds that death rates among unvaccinated people are far higher than among vaccinated people.)

This analysis relies on official reports of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the United States collected and reported by The New York Times .

COVID-19 deaths in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories are not included in this analysis. Additionally, deaths without a specific geographic location have been excluded.

Data was pulled from the GitHub repository maintained by The New York Times on March 1, 2022, and reflects reported coronavirus deaths through Feb. 28.

There are several anomalies in the deaths data. Many locales drop off their reporting on the weekends and holidays. In addition to the rhythm of the reporting cycle, there are many instances where a locality will revise the count of its deaths downward (usually only by a small amount) or release a large batch of previously unreported deaths on a single day. The downward revisions were identified and retroactively applied to earlier days.

Large batches of cases were identified by finding days that increased by more than 10 deaths and were 10 standard deviations above the norm for a county within a 30-day window. Deaths reported in these anomalous batches were then evenly distributed across the days leading up to when they were released.

Population data for U.S. counties comes from the 2015-2019 American Community Survey estimates published by the Census Bureau (accessed through the tidycensus package in R on Feb. 21). The 2020 vote share for each county was purchased from Dave Leip’s Election Atlas (downloaded on Nov. 21, 2021).

The analysis looks at deaths among counties based on their 2020 vote. Counties were grouped into five groups with approximately equal population. For analyses that include 2020 vote, Alaskan counties are excluded because Alaska does not report its election results at the county level. The table below provides more details.

This essay benefited greatly from thoughtful comments and consultation with many individuals around Pew Research Center. Jocelyn Kiley, Carroll Doherty and Jeb Bell provided invaluable editorial guidance. Peter Bell and Alissa Scheller contributed their expertise in visualization, Ben Wormald built the map animation, and Reem Nadeem did the digital production. Andrew Daniller provided careful attention to the quality check process, and David Kent’s watchful copy editing eye brought clarity to some difficult concepts.

Lead photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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