The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land. No law, policy, or practice of the federal government or any state is legally valid if it conflicts with the Constitution. The Constitution is made up of a preamble, seven articles, and twenty-six amendments. Three of those amendments relate to the death penalty: the Fifth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment states that a person who commits a capital or infamous crime shall not be held to answer unless in the presence of a Grand Jury. The Eighth Amendment says that excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. And in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment extended the Fifth Amendment's protections to cover the states, forbidding them to "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
             In the United States the moral debate over capital punishment has always had a distinctly religious flavor. Those on both sides have used both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament as authority for their beliefs. People against the death penalty use the Hebrew Bible in quoting that "thou shalt not kill", and people in favor of the death penalty use the New Testament in stating "thou shalt not kill: and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment." Many other quotations in both documents have also been used, giving reason to both dispositions of society.
             The Supreme Court has dealt often with the death penalty, but two rulings stand out Furman v. Georgia, which temporarily ended capital punishment in 1972, and Gregg v. Georgia, which reinstated it in 1976. The key question in each case was whether the death penalty was a cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
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