USA: Why the death penalty might come to an end

Justice Antonin Scalia

In a speech last week at the University of Minnesota, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said "it wouldn't surprise me" if the death penalty became a thing of the past in the United States.

He could even imagine it happening during his tenure, he said - which, considering he's 79, would presumably be soon.

But how close is the Court to actually ruling capital punishment unconstitutional?

MPR News' Kerri Miller spoke to David von Drehel, Time Magazine editor-at-large, and Carol S. Streiker, professor of law at Harvard Law School, about the realities of the issue. Drehel is the author of "Among the Lowest of the Dead," a history of the modern death penalty.

"I would say within 20 years, absolutely," Streiker said of the end of capital punishment.

Drehel and Streiker discussed many of the issues that would contribute to such a ruling.

Public support is waning

Public support for the death penalty has been dropping since the 1990s, when a record high of 80 % of Gallup poll respondents favored capital punishment. In the most recent poll completed this month, only 61 % were in favor.

Part of this drop can be attributed to the drop in the national murder rate. "The fact that the murder rate has fallen from record highs to around record lows takes that boiling pot off the stove in a sense," said von Drehel.

The Supreme Court has the tools it needs to eliminate it

The Supreme Court already has the legal tools it would need to abolish the death penalty, according to Streiker.

"The Court has an 8th amendment doctrine that says punishments are cruel and unusual if they violate evolving standards of decency," Streiker said. "And the court looks to developments on the ground: What's happening in the world? The death penalty in America is really on life support now."

The system of carrying out executions is flawed

With botched executions in the headlines, many people are asking questions not about the constitutionality of the death penalty but about the actual logistics of carrying it out.

In some states, the process is so complicated and controversial that it is rarely used.

"What we have now is a system in which after a person is sentenced to death, the likelihood that they'll actually be executed is minuscule," von Drehel said. "There are over 750 inmates on death row in California, and there have been just 4 executions in the last 10 years. The same sort of thing is true in Florida, in Pennsylvania - it's true all across the country."

The rate of error is troubling

The risk of executing innocent people was enough to lead Illinois governor George Ryan to clear out his state's death penalty in 2003. "The facts that I have seen in reviewing each and every one of these cases raised questions not only about the innocence of people on death row, but about the fairness of the death penalty system as a whole," Gov. Ryan said at the time.

How high is the error rate?

As many as 4 % of inmates on death row are wrongly convicted, according to the 1st major study on the subject, published in 2014.

"We can't reach the level of certainty that our Supreme Court has said is necessary, and we've tried for 40 years," von Drehel said.

Source: Minnesota Public Radio, October 28, 2015

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Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Idaho | How Bryan Kohberger’s Guilty Plea Move Could Be His Death Sentence

If Bryan Kohberger successfully withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial for the murders of four University of Idaho students, it could lead to him being sentenced to death, experts told Newsweek . Kohberger, 31, filed a handwritten petition on Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary, where he is serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in a rental home near the university's campus in Moscow, Idaho, in 2022. Kohberger pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbings just over a year ago, a month before jury selection was set to start.

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