Tens of thousands of murders occur in this country every year, and only a small fraction of these criminals are sentenced to death. What makes a crime so unacceptable that it leads to capital punishment? Well it seems that more than on the crime the decision is based on politics, jurisdiction and the quality of the legal advisor. “The death penalty is a lethal lottery: of the 22,000 murders committed each year, approximately 100 or fewer people are sentenced to death” (working towards an alternative to the death penalty). The statistics speak for themselves. Random or not, probably the most important factor in deciding whether a defendant should receive the death penalty is the