Although death sentences since 1980 have increased in number to about 250 per year,(1) this is still only 1 per cent of all homicides known to the police.(2) Of all those convicted on a charge of criminal homicide, only 2 percent -- about 1 in 50 -- are eventually sentenced to death.(3)The possibility of increasing the number of convicted murderers sentenced to death and executed by enacting mandatory death penalty laws was ruled unconstitutional in 1976 (Woodson v. [read post]