In Delaware, Billy Bailey goes to the gallows in the nation's third hanging since 1965. Bailey is executed for the shotgun slayings of an elderly couple at their farmhouse in 1979.
The death penalty is on the rise in the United States.
As many as 75 executions are expected nationwide this year, the highest total since the Supreme Court declared capital punishment constitutional in 1976.
The Taylor and Bailey cases, as well as lethal injections in Virginia and Texas, have catapulted the issue of capital punishment to the forefront of the national consciousness.
A Recent History
Prior to the Supreme Court's 1972 decision in Georgia v. Furman, few had challenged the constitutionality of the death penalty.
In Furman, the Court acknowledged that the death penalty had been in use since the inception of the nation. (The earliest recorded execution in the country was in 1622 when Daniel Frank of the Colony of Virginia was put to death for the crime of theft.) The Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the death penalty but on the manner in which death sentences were being imposed.
The Court ruled on June 29, 1972, that the death penalty as then administered, with trial juries free to sentence to death or life without any standards or guidelines, was "cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments."
In reaction to the Furman ruling, numerous states rewrote death penalty statutes in the belief that the new versions would survive the Court's scrutiny.
In the 1976 case of Georgia v. Gregg, the judges approved a number of capital punishment statutes that had been drafted to meet the new standards. Several months later, on January 17, 1977, Gary Gilmore was executed by a Utah firing squad, becoming the first person executed since 1967.
Since then, more than 300 prisoners have been put to death. While there are some predictable patterns in how the death penalty is used, the fact remains that a low proportion of convicted murderers are sentenced to death.
And nearly every aspect of the death penalty differs from state to state.
Most states favor lethal injection as the manner of execution. Some prescribe electrocution, hanging and even death by firing squad.
In some states, the death penalty can be imposed for several different crimes, while in others it can be imposed only for first-degree murder.
Some states, including Georgia and Texas, allow the jury to have the final say in determining whether someone is sentenced to die. In other states, like Florida, the decision rests with the judge.
The Court TV Law Center hopes this site educates you and sparks debate over this controversial issue.
