Deck 1: History of the Death Penalty in the United States: The Pre-Modern Period

Question 1

Who and when was the first person executed in America?

A) Terry Roach in 1597
B) George Kendall in 1608
C) Daniel Frank in 1622
D) Edward Jones in 1618
E) Tom Nicholson in 1600

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which of the following was a primary purpose of executions in colonial American that is much less important today?

A) deterrence
B) retribution
C) saving souls
D) show that politicians are "tough on crime"
E) all of the above

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Why were condemned offenders in colonial America typically not executed for at least a week or two after conviction?

A) to allow the construction of a gallows
B) to allow condemned offenders the opportunity to repent
C) to allow the executioner to travel to the place of execution
D) to allow the family of the condemned to make funeral arrangements
E) all of the above

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Approximately how many legally authorized executions in the United States have been confirmed by M. Watt Espy?

A) over 4,000
B) over 8,000
C) over 20,000
D) over 27,000
E) over 36,000

Question 5

Approximately what percent of all executions conducted in the United States were carried out during this country's first two centuries?

A) less than 10
B) 20
C) 35
D) 50
E) 65

Question 6

Approximately what percent of executions in America have been women?

A) 3
B) 10
C) 25
D) 40
E) 45

Question 7

Who and when was the first woman executed in America?

A) Judith Neeley in 1505
B) Judy Goodwin in 1637
C) Jane Champion in 1632
D) Susan Allen in 1692
E) Kate Jamieson in 1721

Question 8

In which of the following centuries was the last legal execution for adultery and witchcraft conducted in America?

A) 1500s
B) 1600s
C) 1700s
D) 1800s
E) 1900s

Question 9

Approximately what percent of executions in America have been juveniles?

A) 2
B) 10
C) 25
D) 40
E) 45

Question 10

Who, when, and for what offense was the first juvenile in America executed?

A) William Penn in 1622 for murder
B) George Kendall in 1617 for rape
C) Daniel Frank in 1657 for kidnapping
D) Thomas Graunger in 1642 for bestiality
E) Preston Elrod in 1588 for treason

Question 11

The youngest non-slave executed in the United States was Ocuish Hannah. How old was she when she committed the murder for which she was hanged?

A) 4
B) 7
C) 12
D) 15
E) 17

Question 12

Below what age did American law prohibit the execution of children at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791?

A) 7
B) 10
C) 13
D) 16
E) There was no minimum age at the time.

Question 13

Which of the following cities may be considered the birthplace of the American death penalty abolitionist effort?

A) Philadelphia
B) Boston
C) New York
D) Charleston, SC
E) none of the above

Question 14

Who was the founder of the movement to abolish the death penalty in America?

A) Benjamin Rush
B) Benjamin Franklin
C) William Bradford
D) William Penn
E) none of the above

Question 15

What was the alternative to capital punishment proposed by the founder of the death penalty abolitionist movement?

A) corporal punishment
B) life imprisonment without opportunity for parole
C) reformation
D) exile
E) life imprisonment with opportunity for parole

Question 16

Which of the following institutions was crucial to the early American abolitionist argument?

A) the state legislature
B) the free press
C) the church
D) the prison
E) marriage

Question 17

Which of the following developments in the practice of capital punishment has been the direct result of abolitionist efforts?

A) the creation of degrees of murder, which distinguish between those murders heinous enough to warrant death and those murders that do not
B) the number of offenses warranting the death penalty has been reduced (until recently with the federal government)
C) executions have been hidden from public view
D) the annual number of executions has decreased (though that trend may be changing)
E) all of the above

Question 18

In what year was the American Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment founded?

A) 1791
B) 1823
C) 1845
D) 1868
E) 1899

Question 19

In 1830, what state was the first to hide executions from the public by requiring them to be conducted in jails or prisons?

A) Virginia
B) New York
C) Massachusetts
D) Pennsylvania
E) none of the above (Connecticut)

Question 20

Where and when was the last public execution apparently held in the United States?

A) Mississippi in the 1940s
B) Illinois in the 1920s
C) New York in the1930s
D) North Dakota in the 1910s
E) none of the above

Question 21

In 1837, what state became the first to enact a discretionary death penalty statute for murder?

A) New York
B) Tennessee
C) Michigan
D) Missouri
E) none of the above

Question 22

Why did southern states, at least at first, replace mandatory death penalty statutes with discretionary death penalty statutes?

A) to give jurors the opportunity to consider the unique circumstances of the crime and the unique characteristics of the defendant
B) to allow all-white juries to take race into account
C) to force jurors to pay more attention during capital trials
D) to give legislators greater discretion in capital cases
E) all of the above

Question 23

In what year did the last state switch from mandatory death penalty statutes to discretionary death penalty statutes?

A) 1867
B) 1910
C) 1941
D) 1963
E) some state still have mandatory death penalty statutes

Question 24

Which English speaking jurisdiction was the first to abolish the death penalty (except for treason)?

A) Iowa
B) New York
C) Michigan
D) Massachusetts
E) none of the above

Question 25

In what year did the first English-speaking jurisdiction abolish the death penalty (except for treason)?

A) 1820
B) 1846
C) 1868
D) 1890
E) 1917

Question 26

The crimes for which the death penalty was legally imposed varied among American colonies.

Question 27

In the death penalty law of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony each capital crime, except conspiracy and rebellion, was accompanied by an appropriate Biblical quotation as justification.

Question 28

The British colonies listed many more capital crimes in their death penalty statutes than Great Britain did in its death penalty statute.

Question 29

The main reason for the relatively small number of capital crimes in colonial America was the great need for able-bodied workers.

Question 30

The British colonies may have had even fewer capital crimes if long-term confinement facilities had been available.

Question 31

No other public event in colonial America drew larger crowds than executions.

Question 32

Executions in colonial America were considered a particularly wholesome experience for children.

Question 33

The first person executed in colonial America was hung for murder.

Question 34

Viewed historically, from 1608 to the present, there has been a long-term decline in the rate of executions.

Question 35

Nearly 90% of the women executed in the United States were executed after 1866.

Question 36

The first woman executed in America was hanged for murdering and concealing the death of her child, who allegedly was fathered by a man who was not her husband.

Question 37

The most women executed in any single year in America were the 140 women hanged for witchcraft in Massachusetts in 1692.

Question 38

The number of women executed declined dramatically with the decline in the prosecution of moral offenses.

Question 39

Most of juveniles executed in the United States (nearly 70%) have been black, and nearly 90 percent of their victims have been white.

Question 40

Treason against a state has never been prosecuted at the state-level.

Question 41

By the late 1840s, death penalty opposition became so prevalent in some northern states that it had become difficult to empanel juries in capital cases.

Question 42

In the nineteenth century, some states forbid witnesses of executions to divulge to anyone what they had seen under penalty of fine or incarceration.

Question 43

Before 1837, all states employed mandatory death penalty statutes that required anyone convicted of a designated capital crime to be sentenced to death.

Question 44

In the 1890s, about 90 percent of executions were imposed under local authority, but by the 1920s, about 90 percent were imposed under state authority.

Question 45

Today, all executions are imposed under state authority.

Question 46

In the 1870s and 1890s, lynchings outnumbered executions in the South.

Question 47

The U.S. Congress passed a law against lynching in 1905.

Question 48

A recent study suggests that states with the largest black populations and the most substantial inclinations to use lynching in the past now are more likely to impose the death penalty.

Question 49

More capital offenders were executed during the 1930s than in any other decade in American history.

Question 50

Between 1918 and 1957 no state in the United States abolished the death penalty.

Question 51

Beginning in the 1950s, the number of executions in the United States began to increase dramatically.

Question 52

At the time the Rosenbergs were executed, death penalty support in the United States was at the highest (recorded) level in American history.

Question 53

Garland believes that a "positive symmetry" exists between lynching and the death penalty.