Talk:Capital punishment in the United States

"Abolition" is loaded (and not really accurate) language

Use of the words "abolition" and "abolish" throughout this article gives rise to some problems:

(1) it is misleading in that it suggests the elimination of the death penalty was somehow permanent or unconditional; in reality, generally what has happened in states that don't currently have a death penalty is that the existing death penalty statute was repealed, or in some cases the existing law was found to be unconstitutionally defective in some particular way and then no replacement version correcting the defect was passed.

(2) it carries connotations of some obvious evil (e.g., slavery) being righteously destroyed by the forces of truth and justice. Anything sounds sinister when you say it has been "abolished".

This is not really in keeping with the neutral, dispassionate tone that's expected of WP articles. Most or all instances of words like "abolished" should be replaced with words like "repealed" or "eliminated". Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:16, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the words, "death penalty" sound pretty sinister in and of themselves. Shall we change that too so you don't feel so, shall we say, squeamish about it? How about we call it the "taking of life by the state?" Will that do? Will it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.23.105.146 (talk) 07:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, to me abolish is the neutral word and eliminate a heavily biased one that denotes the thing "eliminated" as obvious evil. But then of course I'm German. "Again what learned", as we say in joke translation. --93.134.239.96 (talk) 11:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

"Abolish" has very clear overtones toward the abolition movement, and to a disconnected but related extent, to the term abortion. That illiteration is not probably a coincidence. "Abolishment" is not a term used by mainstream English speaking media, including British English speakers. It deserves mention as a term, but I agree that it should not be used uniformly throughout the article. Shadowjams (talk) 06:42, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Post-Furman Links

There are currently two un-wikilinked references,

the "Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994" link, I assume, could be linked to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act_of_1994#Federal_Death_Penalty_Act (though not being from the US I could be getting things confused)

As far as the kingpin one, it seems there are several variations floating around. (is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_Criminal_Enterprise the same thing?)

Perhaps for both of these it'd be worth linking to the actual act as a reference rather than leaving them as unwritten wiki pages.

58.6.128.122 (talk) 10:07, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Maryland's abolition is pending

I have noted in the article that MD's repeal of capital punishment is pending final statehouse action. If and when the governor signs it, note # 2 following the list of no-death-penalty states should be removed (not before). — Preceding unsigned comment added by RobertGustafson (talk • contribs) 03:29, 24 March 2013‎ (UTC)

Biased towards abolition

This article is weighed very heavily towards various attempts at ending the death penalty over the years. I came here looking for history of the death penalty such as what methods were used most often, but I got "history of abolition from the time of the colonies to now" instead. --108.210.126.195 (talk) 03:03, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I do see the Methods section down further, but would've expected that to be the main topic. Perhaps I'll be bold and edit. --108.210.126.195 (talk) 03:05, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

This video depicts...

The section entitled "States without capital punishment," and then simply says "This video depicts the abolition of capital punishment in the United States between 1846 and 2012," with a link to a video is completely inappropriate for an encyclopedic article. This information needs to be written out. The only appropriate place for a link to a video like this is the references section or perhaps the "see also section." Kronos o (talk) 10:08, 9 May 2013 (UTC)