In 1972, the United States Supreme Court suspended the imposition of the death penalty, ruling it unconstitutional because it was disproportionately imposed on minorities and the poor. The ban was brief. The Court approved new death penalty laws in 1976, and government-sponsored killings resumed. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the most common method of execution among states with the death penalty is lethal injection, which is also permitted by 35 states. like the US military and the US government. A smaller number of states continue to use methods such as electrocution, gas chambers, hanging and even firing squads. The cost of the death penalty is extraordinary. California has spent more than $4 billion administering the death penalty since 1978, or more than $300 million per person for each of the 13 people executed since the death penalty was reinstated. Conversely, it costs approximately $200,000 to $300,000 to convict and sentence an individual to life without parole. If death row inmates were given life sentences, we would get the same deterrent effect of the death penalty: criminals would stay off the streets for the rest of their lives. The money saved could be spent on improving the criminal justice system, for example by increasing