“It is long past time to abol­ish the death penal­ty in the U.S.,” write the edi­tors for the Scientific American. In a March 19, 2024 op-ed titled ​“Evidence Does Not Support the Use of the Death Penalty,” the authors cite an abun­dance of stud­ies demon­strat­ing that the death penal­ty is not a deter­rent to crime, but is a flawed, racial­ly biased, and cost­ly prac­tice respon­si­ble for sen­tenc­ing inno­cent lives to death. 

In dis­cussing the numer­ous prob­lems with the death penal­ty, the opin­ion and analy­sis arti­cle high­lights the increas­ing occur­rence of botched exe­cu­tions, using the recent exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Smith to illus­trate ​“this bar­bar­i­ty.” Alabama used an untest­ed method of nitro­gen hypox­ia in the January 25 exe­cu­tion of Mr. Smith, who the state had pre­vi­ous­ly tried and failed to exe­cute via lethal injec­tion. While the state attor­ney gen­er­al deemed the exe­cu­tion a suc­cess, media eye­wit­ness­es report­ed vis­i­ble and vio­lent reac­tions to the inhala­tion of nitro­gen gas and an exe­cu­tion that took at least 20 min­utes. After review­ing oth­er exe­cu­tion meth­ods, authors con­clude that there ​“is no eth­i­cal, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed, med­ical­ly accept­able or moral­ly jus­ti­fi­able way” to car­ry out an execution. 

Given grow­ing pub­lic opin­ion that the death penal­ty is applied unfair­ly, the authors urge President Biden to ful­fill his 2020 cam­paign promise to work toward elim­i­na­tion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty and for state leg­is­la­tors to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Although 27 U.S. states retain the death penal­ty, only a small num­ber of coun­ties, pri­mar­i­ly in south­ern states, are respon­si­ble for most new death sentences. 

In 1972, the Supreme Court found seri­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns with the arbi­trari­ness and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty and struck down exist­ing death penal­ty statutes in Furman v. Georgia. Following a four-year mora­to­ri­um, the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976 after the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Gregg v. Georgia. Since then, 1,585 exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out. DPIC has iden­ti­fied at least 197 cas­es since 1973 in which a per­son was exon­er­at­ed after being wrong­ful­ly sen­tenced to death and anoth­er 20 cas­es where an exe­cu­tion was car­ried out despite cred­i­ble claims of inno­cence. The authors cite this data to sup­port their con­tention that the cur­rent death penal­ty sys­tem is ​“whol­ly inef­fec­tive.” ​“Too many of these vic­tims have been Black or Hispanic,” the authors note. ​“This is not jus­tice. These are state-sanc­tioned hate crimes.” 

The arti­cle argues that ret­ri­bu­tion, rather than evi­dence-based rea­sons, is the pri­ma­ry dri­ving force behind retain­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“A furi­ous urge for vengeance against those who have done wrong — or those we think have done wrong — is the biggest moti­va­tion for the death penal­ty,” the authors assert. ​“But this desire for vio­lent ret­ri­bu­tion is the very impulse that our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is made to check, not abet. Elected offi­cials need to reform this aspect of our jus­tice sys­tem at both the state and fed­er­al lev­els. Capital pun­ish­ment does not stop crime and mocks both jus­tice and human­i­ty. The death penal­ty in the U.S. must come to an end.” 

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Editors, Evidence Does Not Support the Use of the Death Penalty, Scientific American, March 19, 2024;