uted for things such as stealing or being accused of being a witch. The ancient Hebrews inflicted death on any person found guilty of denying the true God or cursing their parents (Background). For centuries, England punished by death those found guilty of pickpocketing and petty theft (Background). In 1845, the founding of the American Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment gave movement to a nationwide anti-death-penalty campaign (Background). But this abolition movement did not reach peak strength until the end of the century. Between 1897 and 1917, 10 states repealed death penalty statutes, influenced in part by the reformist sentiments of the progressives (Background). During this period, executions occurred far more frequently than they do today (Background). Capital punishment has been a continued controversy in the public opinion forum, in state legislatures, and most recently in the courts. In 1972, the case of Furman vs. Georgia involving capital punishment reached the US Supreme Court. The Court decided that capital punishment would violated the Eighth Amendments provision "forbidding cruel and unusual punishment (Chronology). By this decision, death sentences all over the country were set aside. But, four years later, the Supreme Court held in Gregg v. Georgia that under the states new two-stage trial system, the death penalty no longer violates the Eight Amendment (Chronology).The three most common death penalties in United States are the gas chamber, lethal injection, and the electric chair. Methods of execution worldwide are firing squad in 73 countries, hanging in 58 countries, stoning in six countries, lethal injection in five countries, beheading in three countries, electrocution in one country, and last lethal gas in one country (Methods). Now there are very few countries that hold public executions as in the past, but it is not completely unheard of. The methods of execution were also much crueler. The bi...
