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Is Capital Punishment Fair? If people agree that capital punishment is just, they must then consider whether it is applied fairly. Does the justice system in a particular country always produce fair verdicts? Do innocent people sometimes get executed? And what about vulnerable groups such as the young, the elderly, pregnant women, for- eigners, people with intellectual disability, racial minorities, or the mentally ill? Is it right for people in these groups to face capital punishment? These and many other questions will be discussed in the following chapters.

Text-Dependent Questions

1. In how many US states is the death penalty legal? How many consider it illegal? How many states have ended capital punishment temporarily? 2. What factors influence whether or not an offense is judged to be a crime worthy of the death penalty?

Research Project Using the Internet or your school library, research the topic of capital punishment and the criminal justice system, and answer the following question: “Can a government’s criminal justice system be trusted to administer capital punishment correctly?” You’ll find that some people claim that with human systems, there will always be some amount of error, but the criminal justice system has many standards, such as “innocent until proven guilty” and the right to appeal, that make the correct decision most likely, even if it is capital pun- ishment. Others contend that there is discrimination in courts as well as varying skill lev- els of attorneys that can unjustly affect the outcome of a capital case. When someone’s life is at stake, we cannot trust the criminal justice system to be correct. Write a two-page report, using data you have found in your research to support your conclusion, and present it to your class.

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What Is Capital Punishment?