oviding little guidance to juries in deciding whether to apply the death penalty. This caused states which still wanted the death penalty to revise their legislation to satisfy the Supreme Courts objection to the arbitrary nature of execution. State governments tried two new strategies to be more specific and direct in death penalty trials: guided discretion and the mandatory death penalty. In Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976) among others, the Supreme Court gave sentencing courts the right to impose sentences of death for specific crimes and allowed a two-stage (bifurcated) trial (www.cpa). In the first stage, the guilt or innocence of the defendant is established, while in the second stage, the jury or the judge (depending on the state) determines the sentence. Mandatory death penalty for specific crimes, on the other hand, was deemed unconstitutional because of cases such as Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976). These rulings lead to the modification of each states statutes regarding the death penalty (www.uaa). The moratorium ended and executions resumed in January 1977.Capital punishment remains, as it has always been, controversial and heavily debated on both philosophical (moral) grounds as well as on a strictly financial basis. Both sides, however, seem to be able to crunch the numbers and make their arguments in a way which supports their claims. Today, one of the major points of debate about the death penalty is that of cost. Some of those who support the death penalty defend it as a cost-effective alternative to life in prison. Those who oppose capital punishment conversely say that it costs a significant amount more to kill someone than to incarcerate them for life. What tends to occur is that advocates of the death penalty focus the debate on post trial costs, particularly incarceration, while opponents focus on the trial cost itself. Time Magazine (as of 12/95) found that, nationwide, the averag...
