Is the death penalty justified?
advocate | contrary | prohibit | release | reverse
Embedded Files
Do the Math
Do the Math
People who advocate the death penalty say it helps society by discouraging crime and eliminating the most dangerous criminals. On the contrary, some say a society that executes its own citizens will be less moral and less fair overall. Many countries around the world, from Mexico to South Africa, have abolished the death penalty. The European Union (EU) prohibits the death penalty in all EU countries.
Option 1:
Option 1:
Between 1973 and 2013, American courts sentenced 8,466 people to death. Of these people, only 1,359 were executed. What percentage of the people sentenced to death were actually executed?
A. about 6.2%
B. about 8.5%
C. about 10.3%
D. about 16.1%
Option 2:
Option 2:
In 2000, a study found that 68% of death sentences between 1973 and 1995 were reversed because of serious errors. In 9% of those reversals, the defendant was eventually acquitted (freed from criminal charge) and released. What percentage of people sentenced to death were eventually acquitted?
Discussion Question:
Discussion Question:
The study mentioned above found that in 68% of the cases where a defendant was sentenced to death, the sentence was reversed by another court because serious mistakes had been made during the trial. Death penalty opponents say this shows that the system is deeply flawed. When mistakes are so common, they say, the only way to prevent innocent people from being executed is to prohibit capital punishment, or the death penalty. On the contrary, some death penalty advocates say these statistics prove that each defendant gets a fair trial with safeguards to catch mistakes. They point out that only 9% of those reversals resulted in the defendant being acquitted. In most reversals, the defendant is not acquitted and released, but rather is still found guilty and sentenced to prison instead of death. What do you think? Do these statistics on death sentence reversals support the position of death penalty advocates or of their opponents?
Report abuse