title: Cigarette

text: The European Union in 2011 banned cigarettes that do not meet a fire-safety standard. According to a study made by the European Union in 16 European countries, 11,000 fires were due to people carelessly handling cigarettes between 2005 and 2007. This caused 520 deaths with 1,600 people injured.


title: Cigarette

text: Many countries have restrictions on cigarette advertising, promotion, sponsorship, and marketing. For example, in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the retail store display of cigarettes is completely prohibited if persons under the legal age of consumption have access to the premises. In Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec, Canada and the Australian Capital Territory the display of tobacco is prohibited for everyone, regardless of age, as of 2010. This retail display ban includes noncigarette products such as cigars and blunt wraps.


title: Cigarette

text: As a result of tight advertising and marketing prohibitions, tobacco companies look at the pack differently: they view it as a strong component in displaying brand imagery and a creating significant in-store presence at the point of purchase. Market testing shows the influence of this dimension in shifting the consumer's choice when the same product displays in an alternative package. Studies also show how companies have manipulated a variety of elements in packs designs to communicate the impression of lower in tar or milder cigarettes, whereas the components were the same.


title: Cigarette

text: Some countries require cigarette packs to contain warnings about health hazards. The United States was the first, later followed by other countries including Canada, most of Europe, Australia, Pakistan, India, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In 1985, Iceland became the first country to enforce graphic warnings on cigarette packaging. At the end of December 2010, new regulations from Ottawa increased the size of tobacco warnings to cover three-quarters of the cigarette package in Canada. As of November 2010, 39 countries have adopted similar legislation.


title: Cigarette

text: In February 2011, the Canadian government passed regulations requiring cigarette packs to contain 12 new images to cover 75% of the outside panel and eight new health messages on the inside panel with full color.


title: Cigarette

text: As of April 2011, Australian regulations require all packs to use a bland olive green that researchers determined to be the least attractive color, with 75% coverage on the front of the pack and all of the back consisting of graphic health warnings. The only feature that differentiates one brand from another is the product name in a standard color, position, font size, and style. Similar policies have since been adopted in France and the United Kingdom. In response to these regulations, Philip Morris International, Japan Tobacco Inc., British American Tobacco Plc., and Imperial Tobacco attempted to sue the Australian government. On August 15, 2012, the High Court of Australia dismissed the suit and made Australia the first country to introduce brand-free plain cigarette packaging with health warnings covering 90 and 70% of back and front packaging, respectively. This took effect on December 1, 2012.


title: Cigarette

text: Cigarette filters are made up of thousands of polymer chains of cellulose acetate, which has the chemical structure shown to the right. Once discarded into the environment, the filters create a large waste problem. Cigarette filters are the most common form of litter in the world, as approximately 5.6 trillion cigarettes are smoked every year worldwide. Of those, an estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette filters become litter every year. To develop an idea of the waste weight amount produced a year the table below was created.


title: Cigarette

text: Discarded cigarette filters usually end up in the water system through drainage ditches and are transported by rivers and other waterways to the ocean.


title: Cigarette

text: In the 2006 International Coastal Cleanup, cigarettes and cigarette butts constituted 24.7% of the total collected pieces of garbage, over twice as many as any other category, which is not surprising seeing the numbers in the table above of waste produced each year.


title: Cigarette

text: Cigarette filters contain the chemicals filtered from cigarettes and can leach into waterways and water supplies. The toxicity of used cigarette filters depends on the specific tobacco blend and additives used by the cigarette companies. After a cigarette is smoked, the filter retains some of the chemicals, and some of which are considered carcinogenic. When studying the environmental impact of cigarette filters, the various chemicals that can be found in cigarette filters are not studied individually, due to its complexity. Researchers instead focus on the whole cigarette filter and its LD. LD is defined as the lethal dose that kills 50% of a sample population. This allows for a simpler study of the toxicity of cigarettes filters. One recent study has looked at the toxicity of smoked cigarette filters (smoked filter + tobacco), smoked cigarette filters (no tobacco), and unsmoked cigarette filters (no tobacco). The results of the study showed that for the LDof both marine topsmelt ("Atherinops affinis") and freshwater fathead minnow ("Pimephales promelas"), smoked cigarette filters + tobacco are more toxic than smoked cigarette filters, but both are severely more toxic than unsmoked cigarette filters.


title: Cigarette

text: Toxic chemicals are not the only human health concern to take into considerations; the others are cellulose acetate and carbon particles that are breathed in while smoking. These particles are suspected of causing lung damage.


title: Cigarette

text: The next health concern is that of plants. Under certain growing conditions, plants on average grow taller and have longer roots than those exposed to cigarette filters in the soil. A connection exists between cigarette filters introduced to soil and the depletion of some soil nutrients over time.


title: Cigarette

text: Another health concern to the environment is not only the toxic carcinogens that are harmful to the wildlife, but also the filters themselves pose an ingestion risk to wildlife that may presume filter litter as food.


title: Cigarette

text: The last major health concern to make note of for marine life is the toxicity that deep marine topsmelt and fathead minnow pose to their predators. This could lead to toxin build-up (bioaccumulation) in the food chain and have long reaching negative effects.


title: Cigarette

text: Smoldering cigarette filters have also been blamed for triggering fires from residential areas to major wildfires and bushfires which has caused major property damage and also death as well as disruption to services by triggering alarms and warning systems.


title: Cigarette

text: Once in the environment, cellulose acetate can go through biodegradation and photodegradation. Several factors go into determining the rate of both degradation process. This variance in rate and resistance to biodegradation in many conditions is a factor in littering and environmental damage.


title: Cigarette

text: The first step in the biodegradation of cellulose acetate is the deactylation of the acetate from the polymer chain (which is the opposite of acetylation). An acetate is a negative ion with the chemical formula of CHO. Deacetylation can be performed by either chemical hydrolysis or acetylesterase. Chemical hydrolysis is the cleavage of a chemical bond by addition of water. In the reaction, water (HO) reacts with the acetic ester functional group attached the cellulose polymer chain and forms an alcohol and acetate. The alcohol is simply the cellulose polymer chain with the acetate replaced with an alcohol group. The second reaction is exactly the same as chemical hydrolysis with the exception of the use of an acetylesterase enzyme. The enzyme, found in most plants, catalyzes the chemical reaction shown below.


title: Cigarette

text: In the case of the enzymatic reaction, the two substrates (reactants) are again acetic ester and HO, the two products of the reaction are alcohol and acetate. This reaction is exactly the same as the chemical hydrolysis. Both of these products are perfectly fine in the environment. Once the acetate group is removed from the cellulose chain, the polymer can be readily degraded by cellulase, which is another enzyme found in fungi, bacteria, and protozoans. Cellulases break down the cellulose molecule into monosaccharides ("simple sugars") such as beta-glucose, or shorter polysaccharides and oligosaccharides. These simple sugars are not harmful to the environment and are in fact are a useful product for many plants and animals. The breakdown of cellulose is of interest in the field of biofuel. Due to the conditions that affect the process, large variation in the degradation time of cellulose acetate occurs.


title: Cigarette

text: The duration of the biodegradation process is cited as taking as little as one month to as long as 15 years or more, depending on the environmental conditions. The major factor that affects the biodegradation duration is the availability of acetylesterase and cellulase enzymes. Without these enzymes, biodegradation only occurs through chemical hydrolysis and stops there. Temperature is another major factor, if the organisms that contain the enzymes are too cold to grow, then biodegradation is severely hindered. Availability of oxygen in the environment also affects the degradation. Cellulose acetate is degraded within 2–3 weeks under aerobic assay systems of "in vitro" enrichment cultivation techniques and an activated sludge wastewater treatment system. It is degraded within 14 weeks under anaerobic conditions of incubation with special cultures of fungi. Ideal conditions were used for the degradation (i.e. right temperature, and available organisms to provide the enzymes). Thus, filters last longer in places with low oxygen concentration (ex. swamps and bogs). Overall, the biodegraditon process of cellulose acetate is not an instantaneous process.


title: Cigarette

text: The other process of degradation is photodegradation, which is when a molecular bond is broken by the absorption of photon radiation (i.e. light). Due to cellulose acetate carbonyl groups, the molecule naturally absorbs light at 260 nm, but it contains some impurities which can absorb light. These impurities are known to absorb light in the far UV light region (< 280 nm). The atmosphere filters radiation from the sun and allows radiation of > 300 nm only to reach the surface. Thus, the primary photodegradation of cellulose acetate is considered insignificant to the total degradation process, since cellulose acetate and its impurities absorb light at shorter wavelengths. Research is focused on the secondary mechanisms of photodegradation of cellulose acetate to help make up for some of the limitations of biodegradation. The secondary mechanisms would be the addition of a compound to the filters that would be able to absorb natural light and use it to start the degradation process. The main two areas of research are in photocatalytic oxidation and photosensitized degradation. Photocatalytic oxidation uses a species that absorbs radiation and creates hydroxyl radicals that react with the filters and start the breakdown. Photosensitized degradation, though, uses a species that absorbs radiation and transfers the energy to the cellulose acetate to start the degradation process. Both processes use other species that absorbed light > 300 nm to start the degradation of cellulose acetate.


title: Cigarette

text: Several options are available to help reduce the environmental impact of cigarette butts. Proper disposal into receptacles leads to decreased numbers found in the environment and their effect on the environment. Another method is making fines and penalties for littering filters; many governments have sanctioned stiff penalties for littering of cigarette filters; for example, Washington imposes a penalty of $1,025 for littering cigarette filters. Another option is developing better biodegradable filters; much of this work relies heavily on the research in the secondary mechanism for photodegradation as stated above, but a new research group has developed an acid tablet that goes inside the filters, and once wet enough, releases acid that speeds up the degradation to around two weeks. The research is still only in test phase and the hope is soon it will go into production. The next option is using cigarette packs with a compartment in which to discard cigarette butts, implementing monetary deposits on filters, increasing the availability of butt receptacles, and expanding public education. It may even be possible to ban the sale of filtered cigarettes altogether on the basis of their adverse environmental impact. Recent research has been put into finding ways to use the filter waste to develop a desired product. One research group in South Korea has developed a simple one-step process that converts the cellulose acetate in discarded cigarette filters into a high-performing material that could be integrated into computers, handheld devices, electrical vehicles, and wind turbines to store energy. These materials have demonstrated superior performance as compared to commercially available carbon, grapheme, and carbon nanotubes. The product is showing high promise as a green alternative for the waste problem.


title: Cigarette

text: Smoking has become less popular, but is still a large public health problem globally. Worldwide, smoking rates fell from 41% in 1980 to 31% in 2012, although the actual number of smokers increased because of population growth. In 2017, 5.4 trillion cigarettes were produced globally, and were smoked by almost 1 billion people. Smoking rates have leveled off or declined in most countries, but is increasing in some low- and middle-income countries. The significant reductions in smoking rates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, and other countries that implemented strong tobacco control programs have been offset by the increasing consumption in low income countries, especially China. The Chinese market now consumes more cigarettes than all other low- and middle-income countries combined.


title: Cigarette

text: Other regions are increasingly playing larger roles in the growing global smoking epidemic. The WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) now has the highest growth rate in the cigarette market, with more than a one-third increase in cigarette consumption since 2000. Due to its recent dynamic economic development and continued population growth, Africa presents the greatest risk in terms of future growth in tobacco use.


title: Cigarette

text: Within countries, patterns of cigarette consumption also can vary widely.  For example, in many of the countries where few women smoke, smoking rates are often high in males (e.g., in Asia). By contrast, in most developed countries, female smoking rates are typically only a few percentage points below those of males. In many high and middle income countries lower socioeconomic status is a strong predictor of smoking.


title: Cigarette

text: Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by more than half from 1965 to 2016, falling from 42% to 15.5% of US adults. Australia is cutting their overall smoking consumption faster than most of the developed world, in part due to landmark Plain Packaging Act, which standardized the appearance of cigarette packs. Other countries have considered similar measures. In New Zealand, a bill has been presented to parliament in which the government's associate health minister said "takes away the last means of promoting tobacco as a desirable product."


title: Cigarette

text: Some cigarettes are marketed as "lights", "milds", or "low-tar". These cigarettes were historically marketed as being less harmful, but there is no research showing that they are any less harmful. The filter design is one of the main differences between light and regular cigarettes, although not all cigarettes contain perforated holes in the filter. In some light cigarettes, the filter is perforated with small holes that theoretically diffuse the tobacco smoke with clean air. In regular cigarettes, the filter does not include these perforations. In ultralight cigarettes, the filter's perforations are larger. The majority of major cigarette manufacturers offer a light, low-tar, or mild cigarette brand. Due to recent U.S. legislation prohibiting the use of these descriptors, tobacco manufacturers are turning to color-coding to allow consumers to differentiate between regular and light brands.


title: Cigarette

text: Research shows that smoking "light" or "low-tar" cigarettes is just as harmful as smoking other cigarettes.


title: Cigarette

text: Smoking cessation (quitting smoking) is the process of discontinuing the practice of tobacco smoking. Quitting can be difficult for many smokers due to the addictive nature of nicotine. The addiction begins when nicotine acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors to release neurotransmitters such as dopamine, glutamate, and gamma-aminobutyric acid. Cessation of smoking leads to symptoms of nicotine withdrawal such as anxiety and irritability. Professional smoking cessation support methods generally endeavour to address both nicotine addiction and nicotine withdrawal symptoms.


title: Cigarette

text: Smoking cessation can be achieved with or without assistance from healthcare professionals or the use of medications. Methods that have been found to be effective include interventions directed at or through health care providers and health care systems; medications including nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and varenicline; individual and group counselling; and web-based or stand-alone computer programs. Although stopping smoking can cause short-term side effects such as reversible weight gain, smoking cessation services and activities are cost-effective because of the positive health benefits.


title: Cigarette

text: At the University of Buffalo, researchers found out that fruit and vegetable consumption can help a smoker cut down or even quit smoking


title: Cigarette

text: The number of nicotinic receptors in the brain returns to the level of a nonsmoker between 6 and 12 weeks after quitting. In 2019, the FDA authorized the selling of low-nicotine cigarettes in hopes of lowering the number of people addicted to nicotine.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Gabriel James Byrne (born 12 May 1950) is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, audiobook narrator, and author. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish drama serial "The Riordans" and the spin-off show "Bracken".


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: He has starred in more than 70 films for some of cinema's best known directors. For his Broadway work, he has received two Tony nominations for roles in the work of Eugene O'Neill as well as the Outer Critics Circle Award for "A Touch of the Poet". For his television work, Byrne has been nominated for three Emmys. For his performance in HBO's American drama "In Treatment" (2008–2010) in the role of Paul Weston, one of his most identifiable roles, he won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for two Emmy Awards and two Satellite Awards.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: He has starred in many films, including: "Excalibur" (1981), "Miller's Crossing" (1990), "The Usual Suspects" (1995), "Stigmata" (1999), "End of Days" (1999), "Spider" (2002), "Jindabyne" (2006), "Vampire Academy" (2014), "The 33" (2015), and "Hereditary" (2018), and co-wrote "The Last of the High Kings" (1996). Byrne has also produced several films, including the Academy Award–nominated "In the Name of the Father" (1993). Since 2019, he has starred in a TV series adaptation of "War of the Worlds".


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: In 2018, Byrne was awarded the Irish Film and Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Irish cinema. In 2020, he was listed at number 17 on "The Irish Times" list of Ireland's greatest film actors. "The Guardian" named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Gabriel James Byrne was born on 12 May 1950 in Walkinstown, Dublin, Ireland, the son of devoutly Roman Catholic parents. His father Dan was a soldier and cooper, while his mother Eileen (née Gannon), from Elphin, County Roscommon, was a hospital nurse. He has five younger siblings: Donal, Thomas, Breda, Margaret, and a sister who died at an early age, Marian.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Byrne attended Ardscoil Éanna in Crumlin, where he later taught Spanish and history. About his early training to become a priest, he said in an interview, "I spent five years in the seminary and I suppose it was assumed that one had a vocation. I realised subsequently that I didn't." He attended University College Dublin, where he studied archaeology and linguistics, becoming proficient in Irish.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: In January 2011, he spoke in an interview on "The Meaning of Life" about being sexually abused by priests during his childhood.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Byrne worked in archaeology when he left UCD. He maintained his love of his language, later writing the first television drama in Irish, "Draíocht", on Ireland's national Irish-language television station, TG4, when it began broadcasting in 1996.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Before becoming an actor, Byrne had many jobs, including archaeologist, cook, and Spanish and history school teacher at Ardscoil Éanna in Crumlin. He started acting at age 29, and began his career on stage with the Focus Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He later joined the Performing Arts Course at Roslyn Park College in Sandymount. He came to prominence on the final season of the Irish television show "The Riordans", subsequently starring in his own spin-off series, "Bracken". His first play for television was Michael Feeney Callan's "Love Is ..." (RTÉ). He made his film debut in 1981, as King Uther Pendragon in John Boorman's King Arthur epic, "Excalibur".


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: In 1983, he appeared with Richard Burton in the miniseries "Wagner", co-starring Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. In 1985, he starred in the acclaimed political thriller "Defence of the Realm", though he subsequently claimed he had been upstaged by his co-star, veteran actor Denholm Elliott: "I amended the actor's cliché to 'Never work with children, animals or Denholm Elliott'." In the 90s, his production company Plurabelle Films received a first look deal with Phoenix Pictures.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Upon his return to theatre in 2008, he appeared as King Arthur in "Camelot" with the New York Philharmonic from 7 to 10 May, following the footsteps of veteran actors Richard Burton and Richard Harris. Byrne was cast in a film adaptation of Flann O'Brien's metafictional novel "At Swim-Two-Birds", alongside Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy. Actor Brendan Gleeson was set to direct the film. In October 2009, however, Gleeson expressed fear that, should the Irish Film Board be abolished as planned by the Irish State, the production might fall through.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Byrne starred as therapist Paul Weston in the HBO series "In Treatment" from 2008 to 2010. He was named as TV's "latest Dr. McDreamy" by "The New York Times" for this role, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series in 2008. He also received his first Emmy Award nomination (Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series) for the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards that same year.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: In 2011, he signed up to appear in a film by director Costa-Gavras, "Le Capital", an adaptation of Stéphane Osmont's novel of the same name. In 2013, he starred as Earl Haraldson in the first season of "Vikings" opposite Travis Fimmel and Clive Standen.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: In 2017, he appeared in "Mad to Be Normal" (previously titled "Metanoia"), a biopic of the Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing, produced by Gizmo Films.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: "Walking With Ghosts", Byrne's one-man show based on his memoir of the same title (published by Grove Press in January 2021), opened on 26 October, 2022 at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Byrne had a 12-year relationship with television producer and presenter Aine O'Connor, from 1974 to 1986.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: He began a relationship with actress Ellen Barkin, and relocated to Manhattan to be with her. A year later, in 1988, he married Barkin, with whom he has two children, John "Jack" Daniel (born 1989) and Romy Marion (born 1992). The couple separated amicably in 1993, and divorced in 1999.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: At the fifth Jameson Dublin International Film Festival in 2007, Byrne was presented with the first of the newly created Volta awards, for lifetime achievement in acting. He received the Honorary Patronage of the University Philosophical Society, of Trinity College Dublin on 20 February 2007. In November 2007, he was awarded an honorary degree by the National University of Ireland, Galway; the president of the university, Iognáid Ó Muircheartaigh, said that the award was in recognition of the actor's "outstanding contribution to Irish and international film".


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Although Byrne is noted as a fiercely private person, he released a documentary for the 20th Galway Film Fleadh in the summer of 2008 called "Stories from Home", an intimate portrait about his life. It premiered in the United States in September 2009 at the Los Angeles Irish Film Festival.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Byrne mentioned in interviews and his 1994 autobiography, "Pictures in My Head" that he hates being called "brooding". He has been listed by "People" as one of the "Sexiest Men Alive". "Entertainment Weekly" has also dubbed Byrne as one of the hottest celebrities over the age of 50.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: He married his partner, Hannah Beth King, on 4 August 2014 at Ballymaloe House in County Cork. Their daughter, Maisie James, was born in February 2017. As of 2021, Byrne lives with his family in Rockport, Maine.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: Byrne is an atheist, and has been vocally critical of the Catholic Church, which he described in a 2011 interview with "The Guardian" as "repressive of women and minorities and repressive of its followers." However, in the same interview, he said that he still reads the Bible "for the fables".


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: He was cultural ambassador for Ireland until he criticised The Gathering, a tourism initiative to encourage tourists of Irish heritage to visit the country, describing it as "a scam" and adding that the majority of Irish people "don't give a shit about the diaspora except to shake them down for a few quid." Byrne also criticised the marketing strategy employed by Guinness known as Arthur's Day as "a cynical piece of exercise in a country which has a huge drinking problem."


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: In 2007, NUI Galway awarded him an honorary doctorate for his outstanding contribution to Irish and international film, theatre and the arts.


title: Gabriel Byrne

text: In his book 'Walking With Ghosts' Gabriel claims that Margaret Thatcher abolished school milk. But the matter is politically controversial, as Conservatives claim the process was started by the previous P.M., Harold Wilson from Labour.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The Hawaiian Islands () are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll. Formerly the group was known to Europeans and Americans as the Sandwich Islands, a name that James Cook chose in honor of the 4th Earl of Sandwich, the then First Lord of the Admiralty. Cook came across the islands by chance when crossing the Pacific Ocean on his Third Voyage in 1778, on board HMS "Resolution"; he was later killed on the islands on a return visit. The contemporary name of the islands, dating from the 1840s, is derived from the name of the largest island, Hawaii Island.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: Hawaii sits on the Pacific Plate and is the only U.S. state that is not geographically connected to North America. It is part of the Polynesia subregion of Oceania. The state of Hawaii occupies the archipelago almost in its entirety (including the mostly uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands), with the sole exception of Midway Island, which also belongs to the United States, as one of its unincorporated territories within the United States Minor Outlying Islands.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The Hawaiian Islands are the exposed peaks of a great undersea mountain range known as the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, formed by volcanic activity over a hotspot in the Earth's mantle. The islands are about from the nearest continent.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The date of the first settlements of the Hawaiian Islands is a topic of continuing debate. Archaeological evidence seems to indicate a settlement as early as 124 AD.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: Captain James Cook, RN, visited the islands on January 18, 1778, and named them the "Sandwich Islands" in honor of The 4th Earl of Sandwich, who as the First Lord of the Admiralty was one of his sponsors. This name was in use until the 1840s, when the local name "Hawaii" gradually began to take precedence.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The Hawaiian Islands have a total land area of . Except for Midway, which is an unincorporated territory of the United States, these islands and islets are administered as Hawaii—the 50th state of the United States.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The eight major islands of Hawaii (Windward Islands) are listed above. All except Kaho'olawe are inhabited.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The state of Hawaii counts 137 "islands" in the Hawaiian chain. This number includes all minor islands (small islands), islets (even smaller islands) offshore of the major islands (listed above) and individual islets in each atoll. These are just a few:


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: Partial islands, atolls, reefs (west of Niihau are uninhabited except Midway Atoll) form the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (Leeward Islands):


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: This chain of islands, or archipelago, developed as the Pacific Plate slowly moved northwestward over a hotspot in the Earth's mantle at a rate of approximately per million years. Thus, the southeast island is volcanically active, whereas the islands on the northwest end of the archipelago are older and typically smaller, due to longer exposure to erosion. The age of the archipelago has been estimated using potassium-argon dating methods. From this study and others, it is estimated that the northwesternmost island, Kure Atoll, is the oldest at approximately 28 million years (Ma); while the southeasternmost island, Hawaii, is approximately 0.4 Ma (400,000 years). The only active volcanism in the last 200 years has been on the southeastern island, Hawaii, and on the submerged but growing volcano to the extreme southeast, Kamaʻehuakanaloa (formerly Loihi). The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory of the USGS documents recent volcanic activity and provides images and interpretations of the volcanism. Kīlauea had been erupting nearly continuously since 1983 when it stopped August 2018.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: Almost all of the magma of the hotspot has the composition of basalt, and so the Hawaiian volcanoes are composed almost entirely of this igneous rock. There is very little coarser-grained gabbro and diabase. Nephelinite is exposed on the islands but is extremely rare. The majority of eruptions in Hawaii are Hawaiian-type eruptions because basaltic magma is relatively fluid compared with magmas typically involved in more explosive eruptions, such as the andesitic magmas that produce some of the spectacular and dangerous eruptions around the margins of the Pacific basin.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: Hawaii island (the Big Island) is the biggest and youngest island in the chain, built from five volcanoes. Mauna Loa, taking up over half of the Big Island, is the largest shield volcano on the Earth. The measurement from sea level to summit is more than , from sea level to sea floor about .


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The Hawaiian Islands have many earthquakes, generally caused by volcanic activity. Most of the early earthquake monitoring took place in Hilo, by missionaries Titus Coan, Sarah J. Lyman and her family. Between 1833 and 1896, approximately 4 or 5 earthquakes were reported per year.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: Hawaii accounted for 7.3% of the United States' reported earthquakes with a magnitude 3.5 or greater from 1974 to 2003, with a total 1533 earthquakes. Hawaii ranked as the state with the third most earthquakes over this time period, after Alaska and California.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: On October 15, 2006, there was an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 off the northwest coast of the island of Hawaii, near the Kona area of the big island. The initial earthquake was followed approximately five minutes later by a magnitude 5.7 aftershock. Minor-to-moderate damage was reported on most of the Big Island. Several major roadways became impassable from rock slides, and effects were felt as far away as Honolulu, Oahu, nearly from the epicenter. Power outages lasted for several hours to days. Several water mains ruptured. No deaths or life-threatening injuries were reported.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The Hawaiian Islands are subject to tsunamis, great waves that strike the shore. Tsunamis are most often caused by earthquakes somewhere in the Pacific. The waves produced by the earthquakes travel at speeds of and can affect coastal regions thousands of miles (kilometers) away.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: Tsunamis may also originate from the Hawaiian Islands. Explosive volcanic activity can cause tsunamis. The island of Molokai had a catastrophic collapse or debris avalanche over a million years ago; this underwater landslide likely caused tsunamis. The Hilina Slump on the island of Hawaii is another potential place for a large landslide and resulting tsunami.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The city of Hilo on the Big Island has been most affected by tsunamis, where the in-rushing water is accentuated by the shape of Hilo Bay. Coastal cities have tsunami warning sirens.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: A tsunami resulting from an earthquake in Chile hit the islands on February 27, 2010. It was relatively minor, but local emergency management officials utilized the latest technology and ordered evacuations in preparation for a possible major event. The Governor declared it a "good drill" for the next major event.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: A tsunami resulting from an earthquake in Japan hit the islands on March 11, 2011. It was relatively minor, but local officials ordered evacuations in preparation for a possible major event. The tsunami caused about $30.1 million in damages.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The islands are home to a multitude of endemic species. Since human settlement, first by Polynesians, non native trees, plants, and animals were introduced. These included species such as rats and pigs, that have preyed on native birds and invertebrates that initially evolved in the absence of such predators. The growing population of humans has also led to deforestation, forest degradation, treeless grasslands, and environmental degradation. As a result, many species which depended on forest habitats and food became extinct—with many current species facing extinction. As humans cleared land for farming, monocultural crop production replaced multi-species systems.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The arrival of the Europeans had a more significant impact, with the promotion of large-scale single-species export agriculture and livestock grazing. This led to increased clearing of forests, and the development of towns, adding many more species to the list of extinct animals of the Hawaiian Islands. , many of the remaining endemic species are considered endangered.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: On June 15, 2006, President George W. Bush issued a public proclamation creating Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument under the Antiquities Act of 1906. The Monument encompasses the northwestern Hawaiian Islands and surrounding waters, forming the largest marine wildlife reserve in the world. In August 2010, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee added Papahānaumokuākea to its list of World Heritage Sites. On August 26, 2016, President Barack Obama greatly expanded Papahānaumokuākea, quadrupling it from its original size.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: The Hawaiian Islands are tropical but experience many different climates, depending on altitude and surroundings. The islands receive most rainfall from the trade winds on their north and east flanks (the windward side) as a result of orographic precipitation. Coastal areas in general and especially the south and west flanks, or leeward sides, tend to be drier.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: In general, the lowlands of Hawaiian Islands receive most of their precipitation during the winter months (October to April). Drier conditions generally prevail from May to September. The tropical storms, and occasional hurricanes, tend to occur from July through November.


title: Hawaiian Islands

text: During the summer months the average temperature is about 84 °F (29 °C), in the winter months it is approximately 78,8 °F (26 °C). As the temperature is relatively constant over the year the probability of dangerous thunderstorms is approximately low.


title: Cheryl Hines

text: Cheryl Ruth Hines (born September 21, 1965) is an American actress and director, best known for playing the role of Larry David's wife, Cheryl, on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm", for which she has been nominated for two Emmy Awards. She also starred as Dallas Royce on the ABC sitcom "Suburgatory" and made her directorial debut in 2009 with the film "Serious Moonlight".


title: Cheryl Hines

text: Part of her family came from Frostproof, Florida, but she grew up in Tallahassee, where she was a member of the Young Actors Theatre throughout high school. Hines also attended Lively Technical Center and Tallahassee Community College in Tallahassee. She was raised Catholic, and has two brothers and a sister. She attended West Virginia University and Florida State University before graduating from the University of Central Florida.


title: Cheryl Hines

text: Before getting her break in Hollywood, Hines worked as a waitress, television reporter and telephone operator, as well as personal assistant to Rob Reiner after she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She enjoyed guest appearances on television shows such as "Swamp Thing" and "Unsolved Mysteries". She also appeared on an episode of the Dating Game in 1996. She was not picked on the episode.


title: Cheryl Hines

text: Hines began her acting career by performing improvisational comedy at The Groundlings Theater. Among the people with whom she studied was Lisa Kudrow. She also learned to write comedy sketches—which served her well when working on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as Larry David's fictional wife, Cheryl. The show is written using the retroscripting technique in which the plot outlines are generally and loosely drawn—and then the individual actors improvise to create the dialogue ad lib.


title: Cheryl Hines

text: "When the show first came out people from Tallahassee thought, 'Well, maybe Cheryl got married'", she recalls of the show's initial reception. "Sometimes, I do feel like I live two lives." Hines received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in 2003 and 2006. Speaking about being cast on the show, Hines has said that "Until "Curb", I’d done small roles, really small roles. They wanted to cast an unknown actress. It worked in my favor that I hadn’t done anything. It changed my life."


title: Cheryl Hines

text: Hines appeared in "RV" opposite Robin Williams, "Waitress" with Keri Russell, and the 2008 mockumentary "The Grand", a spoof of the World Series of Poker. Her 2009 directorial debut "Serious Moonlight" stars Meg Ryan with a script by the late Adrienne Shelly, Hines' co-star in "Waitress".


title: Cheryl Hines

text: In 2009, Hines starred in the ABC sitcom "In the Motherhood". It is a loose adaptation of the web series. She played Jane. The series was short-lived, lasting 5 out of 7 episodes due to low ratings.


title: Cheryl Hines

text: During the 2009–2010 season of "Brothers & Sisters" she guest-starred as Kitty Walker McCallister's campaign manager, Buffy. It was announced in July 2010 that Hines would be joining the cast of the Nickelodeon film based on "The Fairly OddParents", "" as a human disguise of Wanda, Timmy's fairy godmother.


title: Cheryl Hines

text: Hines served as the executive producer for the 2010 reality series "School Pride" which follows the renovation of a different school each week. Hines starred as Dallas Royce on the ABC sitcom "Suburgatory" and in "We Need Help", a web series aired on Yahoo! Screen. The series was canceled in 2014 after three seasons.


title: Cheryl Hines

text: Hines married Paul Young, founder of the management firm Principato-Young, on December 30, 2002. Their daughter Catherine Rose Young was born on March 8, 2004. On July 20, 2010, Hines and Young filed for divorce after nearly eight years of marriage.


title: Cheryl Hines

text: When a nephew was born with cerebral palsy, Hines contacted United Cerebral Palsy for answers and resources. Over time, she became involved with UCP and has used her celebrity status to help elevate its visibility. Hines serves on the Board of Trustees of United Cerebral Palsy. Hines and her family won $25,000 for UCP on the July 12, 2015, episode of "Celebrity Family Feud".


title: Cheryl Hines

text: In December 2011, Hines began dating American environmental lawyer and author Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a member of the Kennedy family. They announced their engagement in April 2014, and were married on August 2, 2014. Kennedy has become a contentious figure because of his anti-vaccine activism. On January 23, 2022, at an anti-COVID vaccine mandate rally in Washington, DC, he invoked a comparison to Anne Frank. Subsequently, Hines condemned his remarks in a tweet.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. Capital punishment is, in practice, only applied for aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, only 20 states have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other seven, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums. The existence of capital punishment in the United States can be traced to early colonial Virginia. However, the unique nature of capital punishment being removed and reinstated into law throughout American history at different points in time is related to and aligns with the United States' racial history and its enslavement then prejudice towards Black Americans"." Along with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, the United States is one of five advanced democracies and the only Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions, and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses, leaving the United States as one of four countries to still use this method (along with China, Thailand, and Vietnam). It is common practice for the condemned to be administered sedatives prior to execution, regardless of the method used.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: There were no executions in the United States between 1967 and 1977. In 1972, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down capital punishment statutes in "Furman v. Georgia", reducing all pending death sentences to life imprisonment at the time. Subsequently, a majority of states enacted new death penalty statutes, and the court affirmed the legality of capital punishment in the 1976 case "Gregg v. Georgia". Since then, more than 7,800 defendants have been sentenced to death; of these, more than 1,500 have been executed. At least 185 people who were sentenced to death since 1972 have since been exonerated, about 2.4% or one in 42. As of December 16, 2020, 2,591 convicts are still on death row.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The Trump administration's Department of Justice announced its plans to resume executions for federal crimes in 2019. On July 14, 2020, Daniel Lewis Lee became the first inmate executed by the federal government since 2003. , there were 44 inmates on federal death row. Thirteen federal death row inmates have been executed since federal executions resumed in July 2020. The last and most recent federal execution was of Dustin Higgs, who was executed on January 16, 2021. Higgs' execution was also the last under the presidency of Donald Trump. On July 1, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that a moratorium on the Federal death penalty was being reinstated.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The Human Rights Measurement Initiative gives the US a score of 5.6 out of 10 for the right to freedom from the death penalty.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The first recorded death sentence in the British North American colonies was carried out in 1608 on Captain George Kendall, who was executed by firing squad at the Jamestown colony for spying on behalf of the Spanish government. Executions in colonial America were also carried out by hanging. The hangman's noose was one of the various banishments the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony applied to enforce religious and intellectual conformity on the whole community.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The Bill of Rights adopted in 1789 included the Eighth Amendment which prohibited cruel and unusual punishment. The Fifth Amendment was drafted with language implying a possible use of the death penalty, requiring a grand jury indictment for "capital crime" and a due process of law for deprivation of "life" by the government. The Fourteenth Amendment adopted in 1868 also requires a due process of law for deprivation of life by any states.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The "Espy file", compiled by M. Watt Espy and John Ortiz Smykla, lists 15,269 people executed in the United States and its predecessor colonies between 1608 and 1991. From 1930 to 2002, there were 4,661 executions in the U.S., about two-thirds of them in the first 20 years. Additionally, the United States Army executed 135 soldiers between 1916 and 1961 (the most recent).


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Three states abolished the death penalty for murder during the 19th century: Michigan (which has never executed a prisoner since achieving statehood, and which is the first government in the English-speaking world to abolish capital punishment), in 1847, Wisconsin, in 1853 and Maine, in 1887. Rhode Island is also a state with a long abolitionist background, having repealed the death penalty in 1852, though it was theoretically available for murder committed by a prisoner between 1872 and 1984.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Other states which abolished the death penalty for murder before "Gregg v. Georgia" include Minnesota in 1911, Vermont in 1964, Iowa and West Virginia in 1965, and North Dakota in 1973. Hawaii abolished the death penalty in 1948 and Alaska in 1957, both before their statehood. Puerto Rico repealed it in 1929 and the District of Columbia in 1981. Arizona and Oregon abolished the death penalty by popular vote in 1916 and 1964 respectively, but both reinstated it, again by popular vote, some years later; Arizona reinstated the death penalty in 1918 and Oregon in 1978. In Oregon, the measure reinstating the death penalty was overturned by the Oregon Supreme Court in 1981, but Oregon voters again reinstated the death penalty in 1984. Puerto Rico and Michigan are the only two U.S. jurisdictions to have explicitly prohibited capital punishment in their constitutions: in 1952 and 1964, respectively.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Capital punishment was used by only 5 of 50 states in 2020. They were Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas. Government executions, as reported by Amnesty International, took place in only 20 of the world's 195 countries. The Federal government, however, which had not executed for 16 years prior, did so in 2020, pushed by Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Executions for various crimes, especially murder and rape, occurred from the creation of the United States up to the beginning of the 1960s. Until then, "save for a few mavericks, no one gave any credence to the possibility of ending the death penalty by judicial interpretation of constitutional law", according to abolitionist Hugo Bedau.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The possibility of challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty became progressively more realistic after the Supreme Court of the United States decided on "Trop v. Dulles" in 1958. The Supreme Court declared explicitly, for the first time, that the Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause must draw its meaning from the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society", rather than from its original meaning. Also in the 1932 case "Powell v. Alabama", the court made the first step of what would later be called "death is different" jurisprudence, when it held that any indigent defendant was entitled to a court-appointed attorney in capital cases – a right that was only later extended to non-capital defendants in 1963, with "Gideon v. Wainwright".


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In "Furman v. Georgia", the U.S. Supreme Court considered a group of consolidated cases. The lead case involved an individual convicted under Georgia's death penalty statute, which featured a "unitary trial" procedure in which the jury was asked to return a verdict of guilt or innocence and, simultaneously, determine whether the defendant would be punished by death or life imprisonment. The last pre-"Furman" execution was that of Luis Monge on June 2, 1967.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down the impositions of the death penalty in each of the consolidated cases as unconstitutional in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court has never ruled the death penalty to be "per se" unconstitutional. The five justices in the majority did not produce a common opinion or rationale for their decision, however, and agreed only on a short statement announcing the result. The narrowest opinions, those of Byron White and Potter Stewart, expressed generalized concerns about the inconsistent application of the death penalty across a variety of cases, but did not exclude the possibility of a constitutional death penalty law. Stewart and William O. Douglas worried explicitly about racial discrimination in enforcement of the death penalty. Thurgood Marshall and William J. Brennan Jr. expressed the opinion that the death penalty was proscribed absolutely by the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment. This decision was reached by the suspicion that many states, particularly in the South, were using capital punishment as a form of legal lynching of African-American males, inasmuch as almost all executions for non-homicidal rape in the Southern states involved a black perpetrator, and this suspicion was fueled by cases such as the Martinsville Seven, when seven African-American men were executed by Virginia in 1951 for the gang rape of a white woman.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The "Furman" decision caused all death sentences pending at the time to be reduced to life imprisonment, and was described by scholars as a "legal bombshell". The next day, columnist Barry Schweid wrote that it was "unlikely" that the death penalty could exist anymore in the United States.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Instead of abandoning capital punishment, 37 states enacted new death penalty statutes that attempted to address the concerns of White and Stewart in "Furman". Some states responded by enacting mandatory death penalty statutes which prescribed a sentence of death for anyone convicted of certain forms of murder. White had hinted that such a scheme would meet his constitutional concerns in his "Furman" opinion. Other states adopted "bifurcated" trial and sentencing procedures, with various procedural limitations on the jury's ability to pronounce a death sentence designed to limit juror discretion.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: On July 2, 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court decided "Gregg v. Georgia" and upheld 7–2 a Georgia procedure in which the trial of capital crimes was bifurcated into guilt-innocence and sentencing phases. At the first proceeding, the jury decides the defendant's guilt; if the defendant is innocent or otherwise not convicted of first-degree murder, the death penalty will not be imposed. At the second hearing, the jury determines whether certain statutory aggravating factors exist, whether any mitigating factors exist, and, in many jurisdictions, weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors in assessing the ultimate penalty – either death or life in prison, either with or without parole. The same day, in "Woodson v. North Carolina" and "Roberts v. Louisiana", the court struck down 5–4 statutes providing a mandatory death sentence.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Executions resumed on January 17, 1977, when Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in Utah. Although hundreds of individuals were sentenced to death in the United States during the 1970s and early 1980s, only ten people besides Gilmore (who had waived all of his appeal rights) were actually executed prior to 1984.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Following the decision, the use of capital punishment in the United States soared. This was in contrast to trends in other parts of advanced industrial democracies where the use of capital punishment declined or was prohibited. Forty-seven European States, including Russia, are members of the Council of Europe, and they all comply with the European Convention of Human Rights which prohibits capital punishment. The last execution in the UK took place in 1964, and in 1977 in France.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In 1977, the Supreme Court's "Coker v. Georgia" decision barred the death penalty for rape of an adult woman. Previously, the death penalty for rape of an adult had been gradually phased out in the United States, and at the time of the decision, Georgia and the Federal government were the only two jurisdictions to still retain the death penalty for this offense.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In the 1980 case "Godfrey v. Georgia", the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that murder can be punished by death only if it involves a narrow and precise aggravating factor.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The U.S. Supreme Court has placed two major restrictions on the use of the death penalty. First, the case of "Atkins v. Virginia", decided on June 20, 2002, held that the execution of intellectually disabled inmates is unconstitutional. Second, in 2005, the court's decision in "Roper v. Simmons" struck down executions for offenders under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In the 2008 case "Kennedy v. Louisiana", the court also held 5–4 that the death penalty is unconstitutional when applied to non-homicidal crimes against the person, including child rape. Only two death row inmates (both in Louisiana) were affected by the decision. Nevertheless, the ruling came less than five months before the 2008 presidential election and was criticized by both major party candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In 2004, New York's and Kansas' capital sentencing schemes were struck down by their respective states' highest courts. Kansas successfully appealed the Kansas Supreme Court decision to the United States Supreme Court, which reinstated the statute in "Kansas v. Marsh" (2006), holding it did not violate the U.S. Constitution. The decision of the New York Court of Appeals was based on the state constitution, making unavailable any appeal. The state lower house has since blocked all attempts to reinstate the death penalty by adopting a valid sentencing scheme. In 2016, Delaware's death penalty statute was also struck down by its state supreme court.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In 2007, New Jersey became the first state to repeal the death penalty by legislative vote since "Gregg v. Georgia", followed by New Mexico in 2009, Illinois in 2011, Connecticut in 2012, and Maryland in 2013. The repeals were not retroactive, but in New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland, governors commuted all death sentences after enacting the new law. In Connecticut, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the repeal must be retroactive. In New Mexico, capital punishment for certain offenses is still possible for National Guard members in Title 32 status under the state's Code of Military Justice (NMSA 20–12), and for capital offenses committed prior to the repeal of the state's death penalty statute.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Nebraska's legislature also passed a repeal in 2015, but a referendum campaign gathered enough signatures to suspend it. Capital punishment was reinstated by popular vote on November 8, 2016. The same day, California's electorate defeated a proposal to repeal the death penalty, and adopted another initiative to speed up its appeal process.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: On October 11, 2018, Washington state became the 20th state to abolish capital punishment when its state Supreme Court deemed the death penalty unconstitutional on the grounds of racial bias.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: New Hampshire became the 21st state to abolish capital punishment on May 30, 2019, when its state senate overrode Governor Sununu's veto by a vote of 16–8.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Colorado became the 22nd state to abolish capital punishment when governor Jared Polis signed a repeal bill on March 23, 2020, and commuted all existing death sentences in the state to life without parole.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Virginia became the 23rd state to abolish capital punishment, and the first Southern state to do so when governor Ralph Northam signed a repeal bill on March 24, 2021, and commuted all existing death sentences in the state to life without parole.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Since "Furman", 11 states have organized popular votes dealing with the death penalty through the initiative and referendum process. All resulted in a vote for reinstating it, rejecting its abolition, expanding its application field, specifying in the state constitution that it is not unconstitutional, or expediting the appeal process in capital cases.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: A total of 23 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Below is a table of the states and the date that the state abolished the death penalty. Michigan became the first English-speaking territory in the world to abolish capital punishment in 1847. Although treason remained a crime punishable by the death penalty in Michigan despite the 1847 abolition, no one was ever executed under that law, and Michigan's 1962 Constitutional Convention codified that the death penalty was fully abolished. Vermont has abolished the death penalty for all crimes, but has an invalid death penalty statue for treason. When it abolished the death penalty in 2019, New Hampshire explicitly did not commute the death sentence of the sole person remaining on the state's death row.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In 1982, Texas carried out the first execution by lethal injection in world history and lethal injection subsequently became the preferred method throughout the country, displacing the electric chair. From 1976 to 8 December 2016, there were 1,533 executions, of which 1,349 were by lethal injection, 163 by electrocution, 11 by gas inhalation, 3 by hanging, and 3 by firing squad. The South had the great majority of these executions, with 1,249; there were 190 in the Midwest, 86 in the West, and only 4 in the Northeast. No state in the Northeast has conducted an execution since Connecticut, now abolitionist, in 2005. The state of Texas alone conducted 571 executions, over 1/3 of the total; the states of Texas, Virginia (now abolitionist), and Oklahoma combined make up over half the total, with 802 executions between them. 17 executions have been conducted by the federal government. Executions increased in frequency until 1999; 98 prisoners were executed that year. Since 1999, the number of executions has greatly decreased, and the 17 executions in 2020 were the fewest since 1991. A 2016 poll conducted by Pew Research, found that support nationwide for the death penalty in the U.S. had fallen below 50% for the first time since the beginning of the post-Gregg era.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The death penalty became an issue during the 1988 presidential election. It came up in the October 13, 1988, debate between the two presidential nominees George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, when Bernard Shaw, the moderator of the debate, asked Dukakis, "Governor, if Kitty Dukakis [his wife] were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" Dukakis replied, "No, I don't, and I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime." Bush was elected, and many, including Dukakis himself, cite the statement as the beginning of the end of his campaign.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In 1996, Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act to streamline the appeal process in capital cases. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, who had endorsed capital punishment during his 1992 presidential campaign.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: A study found that at least 34 of the 749 executions carried out in the U.S. between 1977 and 2001, or 4.5%, involved "unanticipated problems or delays that caused, at least arguably, unnecessary agony for the prisoner or that reflect gross incompetence of the executioner". The rate of these "botched executions" remained steady over the period. A study published in "The Lancet" in 2005 found that in 43% of cases of lethal injection, the blood level of hypnotics in the prisoner was insufficient to ensure unconsciousness. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 ("Baze v. Rees"), again in 2015 ("Glossip v. Gross"), and a third time in 2019 ("Bucklew v. Precythe"), that lethal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: On July 25, 2019, Attorney General William Barr ordered the resumption of federal executions after a 16-year hiatus, and set five execution dates for December 2019 and January 2020. After the Supreme Court upheld a stay on these executions, the stay was lifted in June 2020 and four executions were rescheduled for July and August 2020. The federal government executed Daniel Lewis Lee on July 14, 2020. He became the first convict executed by the federal government since 2003. Before Trump's term ended in January 2021, the federal government carried out a total of 13 executions.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In 1632, 24 years after the first recorded male execution in the colonies, Jane Champion became the first woman known to have been lawfully executed. She was sentenced to death by hanging after she was convicted of infanticide; around two-thirds of women executed in the 17th and early 18th centuries were convicted of child murder. A married woman, it is not known whether Champion's illicit lover, William Gallopin, also convicted of their child's murder, was also executed, although it appears he was so sentenced. For the Puritans, infanticide was the worst form of murder.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Women accounted for just one fifth of all executions between 1632 and 1759, in the colonial United States. Women were more likely to be acquitted, and the relatively low number of executions of women may have been impacted by the scarcity of female laborers. Slavery was not yet widespread in the 17th century mainland and planters relied mostly on Irish indentured servants. To maintain subsistence levels in those days everyone had to do farm work, including women.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The second half of the 17th century saw the executions of 14 women and 6 men who were accused of witchcraft during the witch hunt hysteria and the Salem Witch Trials. While both men and women were executed, 80% of the accusations were towards women, so the list of executions disproportionately affected men by a margin of 6 (actual) to 4 (expected), i.e. 50% more men were executed than expected from the percentage of accused who were men.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Other notable female executions include Mary Surratt, Margie Velma Barfield and Wanda Jean Allen. Mary Surratt was executed by hanging in 1865 after being convicted of co-conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Margie Velma Barfield was convicted of murder and when she was executed by lethal injection in 1984, she became the first woman to be executed since the ban on capital punishment was lifted in 1976. Wanda Jean Allen was convicted of murder in 1989 and had a high-profile execution by lethal injection in January 2001. She was the first black woman to be executed in the US since 1954. Allen's lawyers did not deny her guilt, but claimed that prosecutors capitalized on her low IQ, race and homosexuality in their representations of her as a murderer at trial. The tactic did not work.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The federal government executes women infrequently. Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of espionage, was executed in the electric chair on June 19, 1953, and Bonnie Brown Heady, convicted of kidnapping and murder, was executed in the gas chamber later that same year on December 18. Since Heady, only one more woman has been executed: Lisa Montgomery, convicted of killing a pregnant woman and cutting out and kidnapping her baby, by lethal injection in Indiana on January 13, 2021. Her execution had been stayed while her lawyers argued that she had mental health issues, but the Supreme Court lifted the stay.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In 1642, the first ever juvenile, Thomas Graunger, was sentenced to death in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, for bestiality. Since then, at least 361 other juveniles have been sentenced to the death penalty. "Kent v. United States" (1966), turned the tides for juvenile capital punishment sentencing when it limited the waiver discretion juvenile courts had. Before this case, juvenile courts had the freedom to waiver juvenile cases to criminal courts without a hearing, which did not make the waiving process consistent across states. Discussions about abolishing the death penalty started occurring between 1983 and 1986. In 1987, "Thompson v. Oklahoma", the Supreme Court threw away William Wayne Thompson's death sentence due to it being cruel and unusual punishment, as he was 15 years old at the time of the crime he committed; the judgment established that "evolving standards of decency" made it inappropriate to apply the death penalty for people under 16 years old at the time of their capital crime, although "Thompson" held that it was still constitutional to sentence juveniles 16 years or older to the death penalty.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: It was not until "Roper v. Simmons" that the juvenile death penalty was abolished due to the United States Supreme Court finding that the execution of juveniles is in conflict with the Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment, which deal with cruel and unusual punishment. Prior to completely abolishing the juvenile death penalty in 2005, any juvenile aged 16 years or older could be sentenced to death in some states, the last of whom was Scott Hain, executed in Oklahoma in 2003 for burning two people to death in a robbery at age 17. Prior to "Roper", there were 71 people on death row in the United States for crimes committed as juveniles. Since 2005, there have been no executions nor discussion of executing juveniles in the United States.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Aggravating factors for seeking capital punishment of murder vary greatly among death penalty states. California has twenty-two.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Some aggravating circumstances are nearly universal, such as robbery-murder, murder involving rape of the victim, and murder of an on-duty police officer.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Several states have included child murder to their list of aggravating factors, but the victim's age under which the murder is punishable by death varies. In 2011, Texas raised this age from six to ten.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In some states, the high number of aggravating factors has been criticized on account of giving prosecutors too much discretion in choosing cases where they believe capital punishment is warranted. In California especially, an official commission proposed, in 2008, to reduce these factors to five (multiple murders, torture murder, murder of a police officer, murder committed in jail, and murder related to another felony). Columnist Charles Lane went further, and proposed that murder related to a felony other than rape should no longer be a capital crime when there is only one victim killed.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In order for a person to be eligible for a death sentence when convicted of aggravated first-degree murder, the jury or court (when there is not a jury) must determine at least one of sixteen aggravating factors that existed during the crime's commission. The following is a list of the 16 aggravating factors under federal law.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The opinion of the court in "Kennedy v. Louisiana" says that the ruling does not apply to "treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State".


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Since no one is on death row for such offenses, the court has yet to rule on the constitutionality of the death penalty applied for them.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Treason, espionage and large-scale drug trafficking are all capital crimes under federal law. Treason is also punishable by death in six states (Arkansas, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina). Large-scale drug trafficking is punishable by death in two states (Florida and Missouri), and aircraft hijacking in two others (Georgia and Mississippi). Vermont has an invalidated pre-"Furman" statute allowing the electric chair for treason despite abolishing capital punishment in 1965.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The legal administration of the death penalty in the United States typically involves five critical steps: (1) prosecutorial decision to seek the death penalty (2) sentencing, (3) direct review, (4) state collateral review, and (5) federal habeas corpus.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Clemency, through which the Governor or President of the jurisdiction can unilaterally reduce or abrogate a death sentence, is an executive rather than judicial process.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: While judges in criminal cases can usually impose a harsher prison sentence than the one demanded by prosecution, the death penalty can be handed down only if the accuser has specifically decided to seek it.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In the decades since "Furman", new questions have emerged about whether or not prosecutorial arbitrariness has replaced sentencing arbitrariness. A study by Pepperdine University School of Law published in "Temple Law Review", surveyed the decision-making process among prosecutors in various states. The authors found that prosecutors' capital punishment filing decisions are marked by local "idiosyncrasies", and that wide prosecutorial discretion remains because of overly broad criteria. California law, for example, has 22 "special circumstances", making nearly all first-degree murders potential capital cases.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: A proposed remedy against prosecutorial arbitrariness is to transfer the prosecution of capital cases to the state attorney general.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In 2017, Florida governor Rick Scott removed all capital cases from local prosecutor Aramis Ayala because she decided to never seek the death penalty no matter the gravity of the crime.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Of the 27 states with the death penalty, 25 require the sentence to be decided by the jury, and 24 require a unanimous decision by the jury.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Two states do not use juries in death penalty cases. In Nebraska the sentence is decided by a three-judge panel, which must unanimously agree on death, and the defendant is sentenced to life imprisonment if one of the judges is opposed. Montana is the only state where the trial judge decides the sentence alone. The only state which does not require a unanimous jury decision is Alabama. At least 10 jurors must concur, and a retrial happens if the jury deadlocks.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In all states in which the jury is involved, only death-qualified prospective jurors can be selected in such a jury, to exclude both people who will always vote for the death sentence and those who are categorically opposed to it. However, the states differ on what happens if the penalty phase results in a hung jury:


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The first outcome is referred as the "true unanimity" rule, while the third has been criticized as the "single-juror veto" rule.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: If a defendant is sentenced to death at the trial level, the case then goes into a direct review. The direct review process is a typical legal appeal. An appellate court examines the record of evidence presented in the trial court and the law that the lower court applied and decides whether the decision was legally sound or not. Direct review of a capital sentencing hearing will result in one of three outcomes. If the appellate court finds that no significant legal errors occurred in the capital sentencing hearing, the appellate court will affirm the judgment, or let the sentence stand. If the appellate court finds that significant legal errors did occur, then it will reverse the judgment, or nullify the sentence and order a new capital sentencing hearing. Lastly, if the appellate court finds that no reasonable juror could find the defendant eligible for the death penalty, a rarity, then it will order the defendant acquitted, or not guilty, of the crime for which he/she was given the death penalty, and order him sentenced to the next most severe punishment for which the offense is eligible. About 60 percent survive the process of direct review intact.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: At times when a death sentence is affirmed on direct review, supplemental methods to attack the judgment, though less familiar than a typical appeal, do remain. These supplemental remedies are considered collateral review, that is, an avenue for upsetting judgments that have become otherwise final. Where the prisoner received his death sentence in a state-level trial, as is usually the case, the first step in collateral review is state collateral review, which is often called state habeas corpus. (If the case is a federal death penalty case, it proceeds immediately from direct review to federal habeas corpus.) Although all states have some type of collateral review, the process varies widely from state to state. Generally, the purpose of these collateral proceedings is to permit the prisoner to challenge his sentence on grounds that could not have been raised reasonably at trial or on direct review. Most often, these are claims, such as ineffective assistance of counsel, which requires the court to consider new evidence outside the original trial record, something courts may not do in an ordinary appeal. State collateral review, though an important step in that it helps define the scope of subsequent review through federal habeas corpus, is rarely successful in and of itself. Only around 6 percent of death sentences are overturned on state collateral review.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In Virginia, state habeas corpus for condemned men are heard by the state supreme court under exclusive original jurisdiction since 1995, immediately after direct review by the same court. This avoids any proceeding before the lower courts, and is in part why Virginia has the shortest time on average between death sentence and execution (less than eight years) and has executed 113 offenders since 1976 with only five remaining on death row .


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: To reduce litigation delays, other states require convicts to file their state collateral appeal before the completion of their direct appeal, or provide adjudication of direct and collateral attacks together in a "unitary review".


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: After a death sentence is affirmed in state collateral review, the prisoner may file for federal "habeas corpus", which is a unique type of lawsuit that can be brought in federal courts. Federal "habeas corpus" is a type of collateral review, and it is the only way that state prisoners may attack a death sentence in federal court (other than petitions for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court after both direct review and state collateral review). The scope of federal "habeas corpus" is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), which restricted significantly its previous scope. The purpose of federal "habeas corpus" is to ensure that state courts, through the process of direct review and state collateral review, have done a reasonable job in protecting the prisoner's federal constitutional rights. Prisoners may also use federal "habeas corpus" suits to bring forth new evidence that they are innocent of the crime, though to be a valid defense at this late stage in the process, evidence of innocence must be truly compelling. According to Eric M. Freedman, 21 percent of death penalty cases are reversed through federal "habeas corpus".


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: James Liebman, a professor of law at Columbia Law School, stated in 1996 that his study found that when "habeas corpus" petitions in death penalty cases were traced from conviction to completion of the case, there was "a 40 percent success rate in all capital cases from 1978 to 1995". Similarly, a study by Ronald Tabak in a law review article puts the success rate in "habeas corpus" cases involving death row inmates even higher, finding that between "1976 and 1991, approximately 47 percent of the habeas petitions filed by death row inmates were granted". The different numbers are largely definitional, rather than substantive: Freedam's statistics looks at the percentage of all death penalty cases reversed, while the others look only at cases not reversed prior to "habeas corpus" review.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The AEDPA also provides an expeditious "habeas" procedure in capital cases for states meeting several requirements set forth in it concerning counsel appointment for death row inmates. Under this program, federal "habeas corpus" for condemned prisoners would be decided in about three years from affirmance of the sentence on state collateral review. In 2006, Congress conferred the determination of whether a state fulfilled the requirements to the U.S. attorney general, with a possible appeal of the state to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. , the Department of Justice has still not granted any certifications.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: If the federal court refuses to issue a writ of "habeas corpus", the death sentence ordinarily becomes final for all purposes. In recent times, however, prisoners have postponed execution through another avenue of federal litigation; the Civil Rights Act of 1871 – codified at – allows complainants to bring lawsuits against state actors to protect their federal constitutional and statutory rights.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: While direct appeals are normally limited to just one and automatically stay the execution of the death sentence, Section 1983 lawsuits are unlimited, but the petitioner will be granted a stay of execution only if the court believes he has a likelihood of success on the merits.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Traditionally, Section 1983 was of limited use for a state prisoner under sentence of death because the Supreme Court has held that "habeas corpus", not Section 1983, is the only vehicle by which a state prisoner can challenge his judgment of death. In the 2006 "Hill v. McDonough" case, however, the United States Supreme Court approved the use of Section 1983 as a vehicle for challenging a state's method of execution as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The theory is that a prisoner bringing such a challenge is not attacking directly his judgment of death, but rather the means by which that the judgment will be carried out. Therefore, the Supreme Court held in the "Hill" case that a prisoner can use Section 1983 rather than "habeas corpus" to bring the lawsuit. Yet, as Clarence Hill's own case shows, lower federal courts have often refused to hear suits challenging methods of execution on the ground that the prisoner brought the claim too late and only for the purposes of delay. Further, the Court's decision in "Baze v. Rees", upholding a lethal injection method used by many states, has narrowed the opportunity for relief through Section 1983.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: While the execution warrant is issued by the governor in several states, in the vast majority it is a judicial order, issued by a judge or by the state supreme court at the request of the prosecution.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The warrant usually sets an execution day. Some states instead provide a longer period, such as a week-long or 10-day window to carry out the execution. This is designated to avoid issuing a new warrant in case of a last-minute stay of execution that would be vacated only few days or few hours later.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: In recent years there has been an average of one death sentence for every 200 murder convictions in the United States.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Alabama has the highest "per capita" rate of death sentences. This is because Alabama was one of the few states that allowed judges to override a jury recommendation in favor of life imprisonment, a possibility it removed in March 2017.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the top three factors determining whether a convict gets a death sentence in a murder case are not aggravating factors, but instead the location the crime occurred (and thus whether it is in the jurisdiction of a prosecutor aggressively using the death penalty), the quality of legal defense, and the race of the victim (murder of white victims being punished more harshly).


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The distribution of death sentences among states is loosely proportional to their populations and murder rates. California, which is the most populous state, also has the largest death row, with over 700 inmates. Wyoming, which is the least populous state, has only one condemned man.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: But executions are more frequent (and happen more quickly after sentencing) in conservative states. Texas, which is the second most populous state in the Union, carried out over 500 executions during the post-"Furman" era, more than a third of the national total. California has carried out only 13 executions during the same period, and has carried out none since 2006.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Certain races within the United States are disproportionately incarcerated at higher rates than others. African Americans in the United States are disproportionately incarcerated in the prison system at higher rates compared to white Americans. The proportion of African Americans on death row compared to white Americans is no different.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: African Americans make up 41% of death row inmates. African Americans have made up 34% of those actually executed since 1976. This displays the racial disproportionality of African Americans subjected to the death penalty because African Americans only make up 13.6% of the total population of people in the United States.Twenty-one white offenders have been executed for the murder of a black person since 1976, compared to the 302 black offenders that have been executed for the murder of


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: a white person during that same period. Most individuals in charge of determining the verdict in death cases are white, as they make up 98% of all decision-makers regarding any death cases. There are 1,794 white district attorneys in U.S. death penalty states, while there are only 22 black district attorney's in these same states. A supporting fact discovered through examinations of racial disparities over the past twenty years concerning race and the death penalty found that in 96% of these reviews, there was "a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination or both." 80% of all capital cases involve white victims, despite white people only making up approximately 50% of murder victims. 63.8% of white death row inmates, 72.8% of black death row inmates, 65.4% of Latino death row inmates, and 63.8% of Native American death row inmates – or approximately 67% of death row inmates overall – have a prior felony conviction.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Approximately 13.5% of death row inmates are of Hispanic or Latino descent. In 2019, individuals identified as Hispanic and Latino Americans accounted for 5.5% of homicides. The death penalty exhortation rate for Hispanic and Latino Americans is 8.6%.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The ACLU's Capital Punishment Project (CPP) is an anti-death penalty project that works toward the repeal of the death penalty in the U.S. through advocacy and education. The project highlights the racial discriminatory aspects regarding capital punishment and promotes both abolition and systemic reform of the death penalty through direct representation, strategic litigation, and systemic reform.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Equal Justice USA is a national organization dedicated to healing, racial equity, and community safety in relation to criminal justice and violence. Their efforts spread wide and involve fundraising and hosting conventions to support communities of color. The organization is aimed towards people of color who have been disproportionately impacted by the death penalty. Some of their efforts include advocacy to end the death penalty, which they have helped to abolish in nine states.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Capital punishment in the United States has a strong correlation with the history of slavery and lynchings in the United States. States where slavery was legal before the Civil War also saw high numbers of lynchings of Black people by white mobs throughout the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century. These states include, but are not limited to Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. These states are also a part of the group of Southern states who introduced and accepted a new criminal justice system with Black Codes that would give them the power to control Black people after slavery was abolished in 1865. These same states with the highest accounted lynchings, statistically also have the highest rates of capital punishment sentences and executions today.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Once white plantation slaveowners lost full ownership of Blacks following the Emancipation Proclamation and then officially with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865, they used lynchings, both legally under the security of Black Codes and illegally, to maintain their white dominance and threateningly prevent Blacks from challenging their subordinate place in society. Many Black men, women, and even kids, were sent to jail to participate in slave-like work while some others even faced capital punishment, often in the form of lynching, for their crimes because of these Black Codes and other unjust laws. These lynchings were able to be carried out particularly because many former Confederate soldiers held positions within southern police forces, as state officials, and even as judges.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Even after the passing of the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which weakened the strength of Black Codes and supported the 14th Amendment, the lynching of Blacks by whites saw an increase in numbers. This is primarily due to the fact that during this Reconstruction time period, the terrorist hate group, the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.) was secretly created in 1865 by former Confederates and carried out mass terrorizations and lynchings of Black people.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: After the end of the Reconstruction in 1877, when federal troops were removed from southern states in which they assisted in upholding the 14th Amendment's promises of equal protection, Jim Crow laws began to gain traction within southern states and enforced segregation and the oppression of Black Americans in all facets of life. These Jim Crow laws were considered legal under the Supreme Court decision "Plessy v. Ferguson", and allowed for the unfair treatment and protection of lynchings all the way up until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: During and following the Civil Rights era, different acts and laws prevented as many illegal lynchings by the general public from occurring in the United States, capital punishment became a popular, newly legalized way for racist white populations to control Black people and install fear in their daily lives. Based on the disproportionate number of Black Americans sentenced to death during the early and mid-20th century, often as a result of petty or unproved crimes, it became evident that capital punishment was a way whites could still get away with committing the same murders of Black people in an institutionally hidden way. Thus, in 1972, the Supreme Court ruled in "Furman v. Georgia" that capital punishment was unconstitutional. This decision only led to once again an increase in the illegal lynchings of Black people by the general public.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Therefore, in 1976 the Supreme Court decision in "Gregg v. Georgia" upheld the death penalty and overturned "Furman v. Georgia" based on the fear that lynchings by the public would rise if the death penalty did not remain in place. Historical lynchings disproportionately affected Black people and capital punishment today still disproportionately affects Black people.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Although the lynchings of Black people decreased in the late 1900s and early 2000s with the legality of capital punishment reinstated, lynching did not become a federal crime until 2022 under the Emmett Till Antilynching Act when President Biden signed it into law, over a hundred years after it was originally proposed. 21st century legal scholars, Civil Rights lawyers, and advocates, like Michelle Alexander, often refer to both past and modern police officers and officials of the United States' criminal justice system's as legalized, modern lynch mobs because they have the ability to sentence one to life in prison or with the death penalty under the law but with the jurisdiction of potentially incorporating their personal, racial biases. The ability for a Black person to be convicted to death, with the potential that racial bias was used in their sentencing, was upheld during the "McCleskey v. Kemp" court case in Georgia. Groups like the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund (LDF) have continuously worked and continue to work on abolishing capital punishment based on its historically racist associations with enslavement and lynching, and also its disproportionate impact on racial minority communities.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Capital punishment is still active in 27 states, which including the following: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wyoming. Of these, Oklahoma, Texas, Delaware, Missouri, and Alabama make up the top five states with the highest "rate" of executions per capita. However, Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Florida, and Missouri are the top five states with the highest "number" of executions–Texas alone has imposed 570 executions since 1976.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: The racial makeup of the people sentenced to death reveals a disproportionate representation of Black people. Consider the following states with the highest execution rates per capita (defined as executions per 100,000 residents):


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Capital punishment in Texas: Texas is the state with the highest number of cumulative executions since 1976. Black people make up about 45% of the current death row population in Texas, though only make up about 13% of the state's general population.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Capital punishment in Oklahoma: Oklahoma is the state with the second highest number of cumulative executions since 1976. Black people make up 46% of death sentences in Oklahoma County, though only make up 16% of the county’s total population.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: It is also the only state that has 4 methods of execution, while most others only have 1 or 2 methods. These methods of execution include: lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia, electrocution, and firing squad.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Capital punishment in Alabama: Alabama's death penalty sentences persist as it declines among many other states in the U.S. The state continues to have one of the nation’s highest rates of death sentences per capita. As of April 1, 2022, there are currently 80 Black people and 84 white people on death row. Though the Black and white populations are both about half of the total death row population in Alabama, Black people are represented at a disproportionately high number considering they make up only 27% of Alabama's general population.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Capital punishment in Virginia: The death penalty in Virginia came to an end on March 24, 2021 when the state became the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty. Prior to abolition, Virginia had some of the most executions out of any state since 1976, as well as the most executions overall in the pre-"Furman v. Georgia" era.


title: Capital punishment in the United States

text: Exonerations, in relation to the death penalty, are defined as the absolving of someone from their previous verdict of guilty and sentencing of death. Since January 1, 1973, 103 out of the 190 total exonerations in the U.S. have been African Americans. African Americans account for about 54% of all exonerations. This is further evidence that black Americans are more likely to be wrongfully convicted of a crime than white Americans.