The subject of the death penalty has always taken a specific place in the public consciousness all over the world. The capital punishment is not only a tool of the criminal policy, but also a sociocultural phenomenon. At present, due to the deep processes of integration and globalization, the legal status of the personality cannot remain unchanged. The fundamental rights are recognized by the legislation of the majority of the world countries, including the USA. This right was first proclaimed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776 stating that all people are equal. As a result, the problem of the death penalty is inseparable from the general concept of human rights as it violates them, especially, the right for life. The USA, the country with only two-century state history, has absorbed and accumulated the customs and traditions, culture, democratic principles and base of the legal system. However, being the progressive legal country, the US is one of the few of them where the capital punishment has really legitimate character expressed in the compliance with the relevant regulations and practice of the application of the death penalty.

At present, the type of punishment under consideration is a part of the federal legislation of the USA and laws of 36 states. What is more, the distinctive feature of the American law system is that it includes the possibility of the death penalty application on children. For example, in the State of Mississippi, it is extends to the children under 13, in Missouri and Utah – under 14, in Arkansas – under 15. In 13 states, the age is not specified in the law, and this issue is solved by the court.

In different states, the death penalty can become a punishment for various crimes. For instance, one would be awarded capital punishment in case of a murder with the aggravating circumstances, such as the presence of several victims or if the victims were raped. Moreover, there is a death penalty for a child sexual assault.

The ways of death penalty execution differ depending on the state. They include a lethal injection, an electric chair, a gas chamber, hanging and being shot. The lethal injection is the most widely applied method in all parts of the country except the State of Nebraska. There, the electric chair is the unique way of the capital punishment execution. According to the Death Penalty Informational Center.

The United States ranked fifth in the number of executions carried out last year, with executions also concentrated in a few high use jurisdictions – just three states carried out 86% of executions, reflecting the same patterns seen globally in the use of the death penalty.

The Global Report of the Amnesty International (2016) states that the application of the death penalty in the USA is based on the criminal legislation. The laws of states differently define the crimes and criminals punishable by means of the death sentence, its types, and execution. In 14 U.S. states including Kansas, Oregon and Colorado, this kind of punishment provided by the law has never been put into practice; in others, it may be appointed by the court, but not executed; in some of them, on the contrary, it is widely applied. At last, in several states, this measure of punishment is absent in the arsenal of the means of the crime deterrence system, and they include Man, New Hampshire, Dakota, and others. The establishment of a ban on the application of the death penalty in the modern U.S. criminal justice system is connected with the recognition of the human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Many American researchers note the racist nature of the death penalty verdicts in the USA. The African-American prisoners compose more than a half of all those being executed, though their share makes only 12-15% of the country’s population. There is also a certain link between the death penalty and the financial position of the criminals. Some individuals accuse the U.S. justice system of the higher consideration of human live in case of the criminal having lots of money.

The attitude to the death penalty in the USA is ambiguous. Despite the fact that the majority of the U.S. population supports the capital punishment, the number of the executions has significantly decreased recently. Furthermore, the social conditions, dynamics and structure of crimes, public moods and criminal and legal policy of the authorities have changed. Moreover, the wide use of the life without parole is the main factor of the sharp decline in the amount of the death sentences in the USA. However, the number of executions does not define the approach to the practice of the pronouncement of death penalty verdicts, and there is no correlation between these two tendencies. The scales of the capital punishments are determined not by the condition and dynamics of murders, but by the different attitude of the authorities and the U.S. population to the death penalty phenomenon.

The U.S. Criminal Code does not contain any definite position on the death penalty issue as well. It only has the criteria and procedures for the pronouncement of the criminal punishment. Some provisions of the Code, however, contain regulations that allow the avoidance of the death penalty execution that has a considerable impact on the formation of the corresponding procedures in the law systems of various states.

There are a number of states within the country that have abolished the capital punishment. One of them is the State of Illinois that has become the sixteenth state of the USA which has finally cancelled the death penalty in 2011. This tendency is caused by the distribution of the information on the judicial errors that are used as the arguments by the supporters of the death penalty abolition.

Despite the fact that there is a trend of the complete cancellation of the capital punishment in the modern American society, the problem still causes many disputes. When the matter becomes urgent in this or that state, the active lobbying both for the introduction of the death penalty and against it takes place. In those states where the death penalty is not banned, the carrying out of each death sentence is used by both supporters and opponents of the phenomenon for the expression of the positions during strikes at the gates of prisons where the death executions take place.

Thus, being the progressive legal country, the USA is one of the few states where the death penalty has really legitimate character expressed in the legislation and the public opinion. It is the type of punishment which is well-developed by the legislator; though, it is necessary to remember that this model is not ideal and has a set of shortcomings. The U.S. death penalty institute is not only the integral element of the U.S. legal system, but also of the American culture in general.

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