Capital Punishment Throughout history, statistics have proven that Capital Punishment or otherwise known as the death penalty, has been an effective deterrent of major crime. Capital Punishment is the lawful infliction of death among criminals and has been used to punish a wide variety of offenses for many years all over the world (Bedau 16). When the death penalty is enforced, it shows society that committing a capital crime has deadly consequences. In early times, many methods of Capital Punishment were used to deter a variety of crimes. For over a century, the uniform method for executing persons in America