Article #58273

The Marshall Project analyzed over 9,000 death sentences handed down since states brought the punishment back

Fifty years ago, Americans set out on a polarizing mission: to find a just and fair way to punish the worst-of-the-worst crimes by execution.

In some ways, this was a surprising choice. In 1972, a narrow majority of the US supreme court had scrapped the country’s entire death penalty system, calling it “morally unacceptable”, “racially discriminatory” and “arbitrary”. It seemed possible that Americans might join our peers in Europe and Latin America, many of whom had ended executions for good.