End the Death Penalty in America

The death penalty is not an effective response to violence. Not only does the death penalty fail to deter crime, but it takes precious tax-payer dollars away from more effective programs that have actually been shown to make our communities safer.

As long as we have a death penalty, there will always be a risk of executing an innocent person. At least 200 men and women have been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in this country, and some have even been executed. What’s more, capital punishment is disproportionately used against America’s most vulnerable populations, including individuals with severe mental illnesses, intellectual disabilities, brain injuries, and long histories of childhood trauma and abuse, as well as youthful offenders.

The death penalty is applied in an arbitrary and often biased manner, determined primarily by inappropriate factors, such as what county the crime is committed in, the ability of the defendant to obtain and pay for a qualified attorney, and the race and economic status of the victims, instead of the nature of the crime. In America, two identical crimes that take place just miles apart will frequently result in completely different sentences depending on the whims of the local prosecutor.

The U.S. is an international outlier on the death penalty. The U.S is among only a handful of nations still carrying out executions, including China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia. A 2024 report by Amnesty International found that the U.S. had the 7th highest number of executions worldwide. Three-quarters of the world’s countries have abandoned capital punishment in law or practice.

It is time to end the federal death penalty.