By
Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 4:09pm
In taking control of Puerto Rico, in 1898, the United States introduced its brand of capital punishment; in 1927, Puerto Rico undertook its last execution; in 1929 it abolished the death penalty. The people wrote "the death penalty shall not exist" into its Constitution in 1952, a decision which was approved by the United States Congress and the President (who, by the way, cannot receive votes from the people of Puerto Rico, given that it's a "nonincorporated territory," inferring fewer rights than the people of territories). The people of this impoverished and proud island agreed long ago that life imprisonment is an appropriately just and harsh punishment for the worst crimes in Puerto Rico; the majority of the people today oppose the death penalty.
