The death penalty is the most controversial penal practice in the modern world. Other harsh, physical forms of criminal punishment referred to as corporal punishment have generally been eliminated in modern times as uncivilized. In majority of countries contemporary methods of punishments such as imprisonment or fines no longer involve the inflection of pain. Although imprisonment and fines are universally recognized as necessary to the control of crime, the nations of the world are split on the issue of capital punishme

nt. "About eighty nations have abolished the death penalty and an almost equal number of nations retain it" (Capital Punishment 14).

In the debate about execution and human dignity, supporters and opponents of the death penalty have found very little common ground. Opponents of capital punishment assert that is degrading to the humanity of the person punished. Since the eighteenth century, those who wish to abolish the death penalty have stresses the significance of requiring governments to recognize the importance of each individual. "However, supporters of capital punishment see nothing wrong with governments deliberately killing terrible people who commit terrible crimes. Therefore they see no need to limit governmental power to this area" (Hood 56).

In response to public clamor for accelerating executions, the 1996 Congress imposed severe restrictions on access to federal 'habeas corpus' and also ended all funding of the regional death penalty resources canters charged with providing counsel on appeal in the federal courts. These restrictions virtually guarantee that the number and variety of wrong murder convictions and death sentences will increase. The savings in time and money will prove to be illusory.

It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, on the assumption that life imprisonment is more expensive than execution. If one takes account all of the relevant cost however, just the revere is true "the death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment" (National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty). A murder trial normally takes much longer when the death penalty is an issue than when it is not. Litigation cost including the time of the judges, prosecutors, public offenders, court reporters, and the high costs of briefs are mostly bonne by the taxpayer. A 1982 study showed that the death penalty to be introduced in New York, "the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of a life term in prison" (Capital Losses).

Currently, about thirty three hundred people are on death row. Of these the majority is white males. Although the number of females is growing almost half have completed the eleventh grade and are not married. Not all death row i

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