A broad support for the death penalty exists among the American population (The waiting game, 1995, p. 19). As a consequence of the high levels of public support for capital punishment, 38 of 53 major jurisdictions (the federal government, the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico) have death penalty laws in force. An anachronism in this scenario, however, is that proportionately few people are legally executed in the contemporary United States.
Since the constitutionality of capital punishment was restored by the United States Supreme Court in 1976, in excess of 5,000 persons have been sentenced to death in American courtrooms…