The death penalty—also known as capital punishment—refers to the process of state and federal courts sentencing persons convicted of the most serious criminal offenses (capital offenses or capital crimes) to death. The specific crimes and circumstances for which the death penalty is a potential punishment (usually murder) are defined by state and federal statutes enacted by state legislatures and the United States Congress, respectively.
These death penalty or capital punishment statutes are often located in the penal or criminal code, and often in the same statute that defines a criminal offense such as murder. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia do not have the death penalty as a potential punishment for any criminal offense.
In the state of Massachusetts, the death penalty is not a legal form of punishment. Massachusetts abolished capital punishment for all crimes in 1984, and the state's highest court reaffirmed the abolition in 1980, ruling that the death penalty violated the state constitution. The last execution in Massachusetts took place in 1947. As such, no state statutes or federal laws currently allow for the death penalty as a potential punishment for any criminal offense in Massachusetts. It is one of the twenty-two states, along with the District of Columbia, that do not have the death penalty as a sentencing option.