Capital Punishment Distribution of Authority in the United States
Capital Punishment in the United States: Distribution of Authority
The United States has a federal system of government, in which power is divided between a central (national) authority and smaller local units of government (see Federalism). Federal law provides the death penalty for more than 40 crimes, including treason, various forms of aggravated murder, and large-scale drug trafficking. However, fewer than 1 percent of the persons presently sentenced to death are under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Capital punishment in the United States, therefore, is primarily a matter of state law and practice.
In the U.S. system, the states possess the primary responsibility for defining crimes and enforcing criminal law. The federal government provides basic rules, including rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, but each state chooses its own criminal penalties. This basic arrangement holds for the death penalty as well.
Both law and practice regarding the death penalty vary widely in the 50 states. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia do not have a death penalty. The most serious form of punishment in such states is life imprisonment, sometimes without the possibility of parole. The other 37 states all provide that some forms of aggravated murder can be punished with death. Several states also authorize capital punishment for the nonlethal offenses of drug trafficking, hijacking, treason, and sexual assault. However, since the 1990s all persons under sentence of death in the United States had been convicted of some form of murder. (1)
The Capital Punishment contents in this American legal encyclopedia also includes: Capital Punishment Distribution of Authority, Capital Punishment and the Constitution, Capital Punishment Current Conditions, Capital Punishment Delay, Efficiency and Fairness, Capital Punishment Disparity in Application and Capital Punishment Conflicting Efforts at Reform. For a worldwide overview click here
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