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 Michigan, the death penalty is not a legal form of punishment. Michigan was the first English-speaking government in the world to abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes, doing so with a statute enacted in 1846. The state's constitution, specifically Article 4, Section 46, prohibits the implementation of the death penalty, stating that 'No law shall be enacted providing for the penalty of death.' Therefore, regardless of the severity of the crime, including capital offenses such as murder, courts in Michigan are not permitted to sentence individuals to death. This prohibition applies to both state and federal courts located within the state, as Michigan's ban on capital punishment supersedes any federal statutes that might otherwise allow for the death penalty in federal cases.