Capital punishment in Singapore
In 2012, a couple of American elected officials and office-seekers have suggested that Singapore's success in combating drug abuse should be examined as a model for the United States. Michael Bloomberg, a former Mayor of New York City, said that the United States could learn a thing or two from nations like Singapore when it came to drug trafficking, noting that "executing a handful of people saves thousands and thousands of lives." The last execution in New York took place in 1963. Several courts have ruled that the death penalty violates the New York Constitution (see "People v. LaValle"). In 2007, the state of New York abolished the death penalty. 20 states, plus Washington D.C., have abolished the death penalty, with the most recent being Washington state in 2018. However, certain states, such as Texas, still have similar or even higher rates of execution than Singapore.
Felony murder and the death penalty in the United States
Faced with the objective evidence suggesting that legislatures and sentencing juries did not uniformly reject the death penalty for "all" defendants convicted of felony murder, the Court had to limit the death penalty to a discrete and narrow category of felony murder defendants based on its estimation of which category would best effectuate the goals of retribution and deterrence. The "Enmund" Court stressed that the propriety of the death penalty must be measured in light of Enmund's "own" conduct. The "Tison" Court added that historically, the individualized determination incorporates an assessment of the mental state with which the defendant commits a crime, because a more culpable mental state merits a more severe punishment. In "Woodson v. North Carolina", the Court had struck down a mandatory death penalty statute because it failed to provide for individualized consideration at sentencing. The rule fashioned by "Enmund" and "Tison" accommodated this concern by ensuring that only felony murder defendants who had a sufficiently culpable mental state received the death penalty.