Capital Punishment – An Overview “The question with which we must deal is not whether a substantial proportion of American citizens would today, if polled, opine that capital punishment is barbarously cruel, but whether they would find it to be so in light of all information presently available.”- Justice Thurgood Marshall Imagine a man who commits murder once, is given a fifteen-year jail sentence and is returned to the streets where he kills again. He …showed first 75 words of 4047 total…

…showed last 75 words of 4047 total…the State of Florida is altering its law to require that all appeals be complete within five years of sentencing in the absence of new evidence, and must be submitted simultaneously, not sequentially. At the same time, other states, such as Illinois, have imposed a moratorium on executions. It is an issue few are in total agreement about. Most Americans, however, agree that in the most heinous, horrific cases, the condemned has earned his fate.