If they are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by 12 of their peers, they are sentenced a to life term. Then there is a second trial that decides if they should receive the death penalty (this is for the 38 states that have the death penalty). They must be seen as committing the act in an "aggravating and mitigating way at the time of the act". If they are sentenced to death, they are placed on death row where they wait for an appeal by the Supreme Court or wait for death by execution. This procedure is followed by all states that carry the death penalty. There are many forms of executions. The most commonly used method today is lethal injection. Electrocution and the gas chamber follow this method. Hanging and the firing squad are the other methods, but are the least used. .
There is no clear-cut answer if we as a society should enforce the death penalty. There are many pros and con's, but neither out way the other. Capital punishment does have some positive affects. One affect is that for the past 20 years, the death penalty has given some structure and guidelines for society. It set limits to criminals who murder in an aggravating way. It allows society to act upon these crimes in a suitable fashion, which in turn creates deterrence to commit these types of crimes. The death penalty also cuts down on the prison population by eliminating criminals who would normally be circulated in the general population. Most of all, this form of punishment is an act of retribution against the criminal and removes them from society permanently, with a great sense of closure for the victim's loved ones. There are also some con's against the death penalty. One fact is that it is a very costly to society. It cost a lot of money to hold a death penalty trial. Today, it cost $800,000.00 to hold the trial for the death penalty in California. In New York, it cost 1.8 million dollars. It also cost money to house these criminals in special cells in different parts of the prison.
