Informational Report 2st draft

Elections are coming up and one of the biggest issues is the death penalty. For
years, people have been debating the use of capital punishment, but what is the death
penalty? Examples of the death penalty being lethal ejection (L.I.) and electrocution,
just to name two. There are many different opinions form our presidential candidates,
the individual states, and also by the accused themselves.
The longer we continue to support this expensive and failed policy, the more we
fall short of our values as a people (Martin OMalley). I have always been a big
believer, and continue to be, of the death penalty for horrendous crime (Donald J.
Trump). These two quotes show that the opinions of this issue can differentiate
candidate to candidate. That being said, there are only two presidential candidates that
oppose the law. Them being Bernie Sanders and Martin OMalley. The other 14
candidates agree with this law, two of which, Ben Carson and Rand Paul, who agree
with letting the states decide how to carry out the death penalty. (See the Table 1
attachment for more details.)

When leaving it up to the states, 31 states, including Arkansas, New Hampshire,

and Washington, practice the death penalty. On the other hand, 19 states, including
Alaska, Iowa, and New York, do not practice the death penalty. To use an example,
Arkansas uses L.I. for crimes after 1983. The sentence is determined by a Jury in a
court of law. Even though Arkansas practices the death penalty, the state has only
done 27 executions since 1976. On the opposite side of the spectrum, New York
(NY), even though the state did practice it on one point, does not allow the use of the

death penalty. NY has had 1130 executions before 1976, when the law was practiced.
Instead of using the death penalty the punishment, many criminals will have Life
without Parole, meaning life in prison. Although the state government may choose
whether or not to use capital punishment, the accused may want to voice his/her
opinion.
For example,