and followed by all. Now a days the death penalty is instituted "For every 2,000 murders there is only one execution"(Abbot 49). Today lethal injection is used most frequently in thirty-six of the fifty states. The other four types of capital punishment are varied ranging from use in eleven states to use in three states.
             The biggest issue the death penalty sets forth is it conflicts with the eighth amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. In 1967, execution was suspended to allow the federal government time to decide weather the death penalty is constitutional. Then in 1976 the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was not cruel and unusual punishment and it was reinstates. Today if you were to pole the American People and ask them what their opinions about the reinstatement of the death penalty, you would get more people for it then against it. " Now a days over eighty percent of Americans favor the death penalty for murder"( ). Many People feel that if the murderer knew the consequences. " Had the death penalty been a real possibility in the minds of these murderers, they might well have stayed their hand. They might have shown moral awareness before their victims died"(Guernsey 35). This is why the death penalty should
             be mandatory, so these murderers will realize that there actions will not go uncontested, that they will not just be put in jail, but pay a maximum penalty, their life.
             The average condemned on death row is a " single white male
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