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IPEM Journals/Law/Vol. 9

TECH-DRIVEN SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL DEATH PENALTY CHALLENGES: LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL APPROACHES TO MANDATORY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN INDIA AND THE USA

Swikriti Mahajan

Vol 9, Issue 1 (2025)Pages 14-26Published 2025-12-30

Abstract

The global debate concerning the death penalty has also entered a new phase of changes due to the fact that the law regimes touch upon the increasing influence of the technology on the criminal justice process. The next research article discusses how technological solutions, such as digital evidence solutions and forensic innovations, and their analysis solutions on algorithmic risk-assessment are changing the legislative and judicial reaction to the compulsory capital punishment in India and the United States. Common constitutional commitments to due process and human dignity exist between the two jurisdictions but the statutory framework, institutional protection and sentencing for each differ significantly. The paper starts by bringing the criminal nature of the mandatory death penalty regimes to the fore issue of human rights in the world through observing that the international world is increasingly ge ing convinced that compulsory capital punishment structures are not relevant to the shifting requirements of decency. It is against this background that the paper analyses the way in which courts and legislatures in both India and USA are integrating the application of technological interviewing to reduce wrongful conviction, provide individualized sentencing and procedural fairness. Of the most significant innovations, including digital chain-of-custody, AI-assisted-forensic-analysis, electronic case-management, and predictive analytics, are of most importance, assessed critically in terms of their abilities to improve the evidentiary reliability of capital cases. It has also been seen through the comparative analysis that there are big challenges. There exists a threat of algorithmic instruments that are loaded with race, caste, or socio-economic bias; digital evidence is dubbed in significance of authenticity and manipulation; and absence of fundamental access to the forensic instruments of high tech can contribute to the state of injustice. The article evaluates how the Indian courts after the doctrine of the rarest of rare and the U.S. courts after the landmark jurisprudence of Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments are grappling with such complexities in undertaking the review of the death-qualified offences and the sentencing processes. Lastly, paper believes that, despite the meaning those technology is to be used as a means of fostering fairness, transparency, and individualized justice, it cannot replace the powerful constitutional checking or moral safeguards. The USA and India need to accept moderate and humanistic solutions that will not lead to the compromise of due process, judicial independence and the need to protect wrongful executions by adopting technological advances

Keywords

  • Mandatory death penalty
  • Capital punishment
  • India
  • The United States
  • Technology in criminal justice
  • Digital evidence
  • Forensic technology
  • Algorithmic decision-making
  • Individualized sentencing
  • Comparative criminal law

Author affiliations

  • Swikriti Mahajan, PHD Scholar University of Jammu

How to cite

Swikriti Mahajan, “TECH-DRIVEN SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL DEATH PENALTY CHALLENGES: LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL APPROACHES TO MANDATORY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN INDIA AND THE USA,” IPEM Law Journal, vol. 9, pp. 14–26, Dec. 2025, doi:

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