ProCon’s Death Penalty Quiz

Question: Which of the following methods of execution have been used in the United States?

Answer: All of these forms of execution have been used in the United States.

Question: Many U.S. states have moratoriums on capital punishment. What does moratorium mean?

Answer: By early 2025 roughly half of all U.S. states had the death penalty; several states had the death penalty but had imposed a moratorium on the punishment, which is a temporary suspension of an activity, while other factors are tracked and considered.

Question: The first recorded execution in the American colonies was for which crime?

Answer: The first recorded execution in the American colonies was for treason. In the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608 Captain George Kendall was hanged for treason.

Question: Which of these American generations least supports capital punishment?

Answer: Among these, Generation Z (used to describe those born during the late 1990s and early 2000s; some sources give the birth range of 1997–2012) is the least supportive of capital punishment. The older Silent Generation (those born between the mid-1920s and mid-1940s) is the most supportive.

Question: Which of the following contains the earliest known death penalty laws?

Answer: The Code of Hammurabi, a legal document from ancient Babylonia (in modern-day Iraq), developed during the reign of Hammurabi (1792–1750 bce), contained the first known death penalty laws.

Question: Which of the following is not an argument in favor of capital punishment?

Answer: Opponents of capital punishment often argue that the death penalty is steeped in poor legal assistance and racial bias.

Question: What best summarizes the idea of talion law?

Answer: Talion law is the principle developed in early Babylonian law and present in both biblical and early Roman law that a criminal’s punishment should precisely match the injuries and damages inflicted on the victims. Many societies applied this “eye-for-an-eye” principle literally.

Question: Many think capital punishment is a deterrent to crime. What does deterrent mean?

Answer: Advocates of capital punishment often praise its deterrent effect, discouraging other crimes: if it is not a deterrent to would-be murderers, at the very least, when the punishment is carried out, the death penalty prevents convicted murderers from repeating their crimes.