*Each year there are about 250 people added to death row and 35 executed.The death penalty is the harshest form of punishment enforced in the United Sates today. Once a jury has convicted a criminal offense they go to the second part of the trial, the punishment phase. If the jury recommends the death penalty and the judge agrees then the criminal will face some form of execution, lethal injection is the most common form used today. There was a period from 1972 to 1976 that capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Their reason for this decision was that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth amendment. The decision was reversed when new methods of execution were introduced.*Capital punishment is a difficult issue and there are as many different opinions as there are people.*"People that favor the death penalty agree that capital punishment is a relic of barbarism, but as murder itself is barbaric, they contend that death is a fitting punishment for it" (Jayewardene 87)@Jayewardene, C. H. S. The Penalty of Death. Massachusetts:Lexington, 1977.#http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~tonya/spring/cap/group1.htm...
