Murder in the First Degree

In 1793, William Bradford, the attorney general in Pennsylvania, proposes dividing murder into degrees and suggests that only premeditated or deliberately committed murder­murder in the first degree­should be punishable by death. The plan is enacted in Bradford's home state in 1794, and the state of Virginia follows suit in 1796. Although other states do not immediately adopt the policy, they do dramatically reduce the number of capital crimes on their books. Eventually, Bradford's plan becomes standard, and it will remain in effect 200 years later­although by then not all states use the death penalty, and even in states that do, prosecutors will not necessarily pursue capital punishment for every first-degree murder.

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