UNIT 35

► Ex. I. Scan through the text. Work in pairs to question the text and to give answers.

Capital punishment and its constitutionality. In the United States, where the existence of the death penalty is primarily a matter of state law, capital punishment was permitted by many states for murder and in some states for offenses such as rape and kidnapping. Executions were common; between 150 and 200 persons were executed each year in the decade before World War II. In the postwar years the number of executions declined to about 50 each year by the late 1950s. During the 1960s doubts grew as to whether the application of the death penalty was constitutional. These doubts led to a complete cessation of executions for a decade, until the Supreme Court of the United States settled the constitutional issues in 1972. The Supreme Court enacted that the death penalty itself did not violate the Constitution but that the manner of its application in many states did. Some states enacted legislation that if there was no discretion in the application of the death penalty, there could be no question of discrimination in its application. [Discretion is the ability and right to decide exactly what should be done in a particular situation. Discrimination is the practice of treating one particular group in society in an unfair way.] Other states enacted legislation that provided for the death penalty to be imposed only after a special hearing, at which matters of mitigation and aggravation were to be considered, so that the discretion would be exercised in a systematic rather than an arbitrary manner. The constitutionality of these new laws was - considered by the Supreme Court in 1976, which decided that laws making the application of the death penalty automatic I were unconstitutional but that those providing a framework for i the exercise of discretion were constitutional.