executions averaged 71 per year, a 21,000 percent increase over the 1966-1980 periods. The murder rate dropped from a high of 10. (per 100,000) in 1980 to 5.7 in 1999 û a 44 percent reduction. The murder rate is now at its lowest level since 1966ö (ôExecutionsö B4).
Death is an appropriate penalty for crimes society deems particularly heinous. It is a fact that mitigating circumstances are also considered, and appropriate judgments are made for those circumstances and are reflected in our laws. We assign lesser penalties to convictions for manslaughter, accidents, and other situations, and no one argues the need to incorporate the situation compassionately into those judgments of relative fault. The result is the same: a human being wrongfully killed and a guilty party at fault. Who is happy to think of Charles Manson, alive and ôstill crazy after all these years,ö living on at great cost to the taxp
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