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Using androphilia and gynephilia can avoid confusion and offense when describing people in non-western cultures, as well as when describing intersex and transgender people. Psychiatrist Anil Aggrawal explains that androphilia, along with gynephilia, "is needed to overcome immense difficulties in characterizing the sexual orientation of trans men and trans women. For instance, it is difficult to decide whether a trans man erotically attracted to males is a heterosexual female or a homosexual male; or a trans woman erotically attracted to females is a heterosexual male or a lesbian female. Any attempt to classify them may not only cause confusion but arouse offense among the affected subjects. In such cases, while defining sexual attraction, it is best to focus on the object of their attraction rather than on the sex or gender of the subject." Sexologist Milton Diamond writes, "The terms heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual are better used as adjectives, not nouns, and are better applied to behaviors, not people. This usage is particularly advantageous when discussing the partners of transsexual or intersexed individuals. These newer terms also do not carry the social weight of the former ones." |
The Kinsey scale has been praised for dismissing the dichotomous classification of sexual orientation and allowing for a new perspective on human sexuality. However, the scale has been criticized because it is still not a true continuum. Despite seven categories being able to provide a more accurate description of sexual orientation than a dichotomous scale it is still difficult to determine which category individuals should be assigned to. In a major study comparing sexual response in homosexual males and females, Masters and Johnson discuss the difficulty of assigning the Kinsey ratings to participants. Particularly, they found it difficult to determine the relative amount heterosexual and homosexual experience and response in a person's history when using the scale. They report finding it difficult to assign ratings 2-4 for individuals with a large number of heterosexual and homosexual experiences. When, there is a lot of heterosexual and homosexual experiences in one's history it becomes difficult for that individual to be fully objective in assessing the relative amount of each. |
The SASO consists of 12 questions. Six of these questions assess sexual attraction, four assess sexual behavior, and two assess sexual orientation identity. For each question on the scale that measures homosexuality there is a corresponding question that measures heterosexuality giving six matching pairs of questions. Taken all together, the six pairs of questions and responses provide a profile of an individual's sexual orientation. However, results can be further simplified into four summaries that look specifically at responses that correspond to either homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality or asexuality. |
The exact causes for the development of a particular sexual orientation have yet to be established. To date, a lot of research has been conducted to determine the influence of genetics, hormonal action, development dynamics, social and cultural influences—which has led many to think that biology and environment factors play a complex role in forming it. It was once thought that homosexuality was the result of faulty psychological development, resulting from childhood experiences and troubled relationships, including childhood sexual abuse. It has been found that this was based on prejudice and misinformation. |
One of the uses for scales that assess sexual orientation is determining what the prevalence of different sexual orientations are within a population. Depending on subject's age, culture and sex, the prevalence rates of homosexuality vary depending on which component of sexual orientation is being assessed: sexual attraction, sexual behavior, or sexual identity. Assessing sexual attraction will yield the greatest prevalence of homosexuality in a population whereby the proportion of individuals indicating they are same sex attracted is two to three times greater than the proportion reporting same sex behavior or identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Furthermore, reports of same sex behavior usually exceed those of gay, lesbian, or bisexual identification. The following chart demonstrates how widely the prevalence of homosexuality can vary depending on what age, location and component of sexual orientation is being assessed: |
As female fetuses have two X chromosomes and male ones a XY pair, the chromosome Y is the responsible for producing male differentiation on the defect female development. The differentiation process is driven by androgen hormones, mainly testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT). The newly formed testicles in the fetus are responsible for the secretion of androgens, that will cooperate in driving the sexual differentiation of the developing fetus, included its brain. This results in sexual differences between males and females. This fact has led some scientists to test in various ways the result of modifying androgen exposure levels in mammals during fetus and early life. |
One of the earliest sexual orientation classification schemes was proposed in the 1860s by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in a series of pamphlets he published privately. The classification scheme, which was meant only to describe males, separated them into three basic categories: dionings, urnings and uranodionings. An urning can be further categorized by degree of effeminacy. These categories directly correspond with the categories of sexual orientation used today: heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual. In the series of pamphlets, Ulrichs outlined a set of questions to determine if a man was an urning. The definitions of each category of Ulrichs' classification scheme are as follows: |
Weinrich et al. (1993) and Weinberg et al. (1994) criticized the scale for lumping individuals who are different based on different dimensions of sexuality into the same categories. When applying the scale, Kinsey considered two dimensions of sexual orientation: overt sexual experience and psychosexual reactions. Valuable information was lost by collapsing the two values into one final score. A person who has only predominantly same sex reactions is different from someone with relatively little reaction but lots of same sex experience. It would have been quite simple for Kinsey to have measured the two dimensions separately and report scores independently to avoid loss of information. Furthermore, there are more than two dimensions of sexuality to be considered. Beyond behavior and reactions, one could also assess attraction, identification, lifestyle etc. This is addressed by the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid. |
Of all the questions on the scale, Sell considered those assessing sexual attraction to be the most important as sexual attraction is a better reflection of the concept of sexual orientation which he defined as "extent of sexual attractions toward members of the other, same, both sexes or neither" than either sexual identity or sexual behavior. Identity and behavior are measured as supplemental information because they are both closely tied to sexual attraction and sexual orientation. Major criticisms of the SASO have not been established, but a concern is that the reliability and validity remains largely unexamined. |
The variance in prevalence rates is reflected in people's inconsistent responses to the different components of sexual orientation within a study and the instability of their responses over time. Laumann et al., (1994) found that among U.S. adults 20% of those who would be considered homosexual on one component of orientation were homosexual on the other two dimensions and 70% responded in a way that was consistent with homosexuality on only one of the three dimensions. Furthermore, sexuality is fluid such that one's sexual orientation is not necessarily stable or consistent over time but is subject to change throughout life. Diamond (2003) found that over 7 years 2/3 of the women changed their sexual identity at least once, with many reporting that the label was not adequate in capturing the diversity of their sexual or romantic feelings. Furthermore, women who relinquished bisexual and lesbian identification did not relinquish same sex sexuality and acknowledged the possibility for future same sex attractions and/or behaviour. One woman stated "I'm mainly straight but I'm one of those people who, if the right circumstance came along, would change my viewpoint". Therefore, individuals classified as homosexual in one study might not be identified the same way in another depending on which components are assessed and when the assessment is made making it difficult to pin point who is homosexual and who is not and what the overall prevalence within a population may be. |
Because sexual orientation is complex and multi-dimensional, some academics and researchers, especially in queer studies, have argued that it is a historical and social construction. In 1976, philosopher and historian Michel Foucault argued in The History of Sexuality that homosexuality as an identity did not exist in the eighteenth century; that people instead spoke of "sodomy," which referred to sexual acts. Sodomy was a crime that was often ignored, but sometimes punished severely (see sodomy law). He wrote, "'Sexuality' is an invention of the modern state, the industrial revolution, and capitalism." |
Some researchers who study sexual orientation argue that the concept may not apply similarly to men and women. A study of sexual arousal patterns found that women, when viewing erotic films which show female-female, male-male and male-female sexual activity (oral sex or penetration), have patterns of arousal which do not match their declared sexual orientations as well as men's. That is, heterosexual and lesbian women's sexual arousal to erotic films do not differ significantly by the genders of the participants (male or female) or by the type of sexual activity (heterosexual or homosexual). On the contrary, men's sexual arousal patterns tend to be more in line with their stated orientations, with heterosexual men showing more penis arousal to female-female sexual activity and less arousal to female-male and male-male sexual stimuli, and homosexual and bisexual men being more aroused by films depicting male-male intercourse and less aroused by other stimuli. |
Research suggests that sexual orientation is independent of cultural and other social influences, but that open identification of one's sexual orientation may be hindered by homophobic/hetereosexist settings. Social systems such as religion, language and ethnic traditions can have a powerful impact on realization of sexual orientation. Influences of culture may complicate the process of measuring sexual orientation. The majority of empirical and clinical research on LGBT populations are done with largely white, middle-class, well-educated samples, however there are pockets of research that document various other cultural groups, although these are frequently limited in diversity of gender and sexual orientation of the subjects. Integration of sexual orientation with sociocultural identity may be a challenge for LGBT individuals. Individuals may or may not consider their sexual orientation to define their sexual identity, as they may experience various degrees of fluidity of sexuality, or may simply identify more strongly with another aspect of their identity such as family role. American culture puts a great emphasis on individual attributes, and views the self as unchangeable and constant. In contrast, East Asian cultures put a great emphasis on a person's social role within social hierarchies, and view the self as fluid and malleable. These differing cultural perspectives have many implications on cognitions of the self, including perception of sexual orientation. |
Some other cultures do not recognize a homosexual/heterosexual/bisexual distinction. It is common to distinguish a person's sexuality according to their sexual role (active/passive; insertive/penetrated). In this distinction, the passive role is typically associated with femininity and/or inferiority, while the active role is typically associated with masculinity and/or superiority. For example, an investigation of a small Brazilian fishing village revealed three sexual categories for men: men who have sex only with men (consistently in a passive role), men who have sex only with women, and men who have sex with women and men (consistently in an active role). While men who consistently occupied the passive role were recognized as a distinct group by locals, men who have sex with only women, and men who have sex with women and men, were not differentiated. Little is known about same-sex attracted females, or sexual behavior between females in these cultures. |
Though researchers generally believe that sexual orientation is not determined by any one factor but by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences, with biological factors involving a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment, they favor biological models for the cause. They believe that sexual orientation is not a choice, and some of them believe that it is established at conception. That is, individuals do not choose to be homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or asexual. While current scientific investigation usually seeks to find biological explanations for the adoption of a particular sexual orientation, there are yet no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for sexual orientation. However, scientific studies have found a number of statistical biological differences between gay people and heterosexuals, which may result from the same underlying cause as sexual orientation itself. |
Sexual orientation is argued as a concept that evolved in the industrialized West, and there is a controversy as to the universality of its application in other societies or cultures. Non-westernized concepts of male sexuality differ essentially from the way sexuality is seen and classified under the Western system of sexual orientation.[unreliable source?] The validity of the notion of sexual orientation as defined in the West, as a biological phenomenon rather than a social construction specific to a region and period, has also been questioned within the industrialized Western society). |
Some researchers, such as Bruce Bagemihl, have criticized the labels "heterosexual" and "homosexual" as confusing and degrading. Bagemihl writes, "...the point of reference for 'heterosexual' or 'homosexual' orientation in this nomenclature is solely the individual's genetic sex prior to reassignment (see for example, Blanchard et al. 1987, Coleman and Bockting, 1988, Blanchard, 1989). These labels thereby ignore the individual's personal sense of gender identity taking precedence over biological sex, rather than the other way around." Bagemihl goes on to take issue with the way this terminology makes it easy to claim transsexuals are really homosexual males seeking to escape from stigma. |
Often, sexual orientation and sexual orientation identity are not distinguished, which can impact accurately assessing sexual identity and whether or not sexual orientation is able to change; sexual orientation identity can change throughout an individual's life, and may or may not align with biological sex, sexual behavior or actual sexual orientation. While the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and American Psychiatric Association state that sexual orientation is innate, continuous or fixed throughout their lives for some people, but is fluid or changes over time for others, the American Psychological Association distinguishes between sexual orientation (an innate attraction) and sexual orientation identity (which may change at any point in a person's life). |
Known as the fraternal birth order (FBO) effect, this theory has been backed up by strong evidence of its prenatal origin, although no evidence thus far has linked it to an exact prenatal mechanism. However, research suggests that this may be of immunological origin, caused by a maternal immune reaction against a substance crucial to male fetal development during pregnancy, which becomes increasingly likely after every male gestation. As a result of this immune effect, alterations in later-born males' prenatal development have been thought to occur. This process, known as the maternal immunization hypothesis (MIH), would begin when cells from a male fetus enter the mother's circulation during pregnancy or while giving birth. These Y-linked proteins would not be recognized in the mother's immune system because she is female, causing her to develop antibodies which would travel through the placental barrier into the fetal compartment. From here, the anti-male bodies would then cross the blood/brain barrier (BBB) of the developing fetal brain, altering sex-dimorphic brain structures relative to sexual orientation, causing the exposed son to be more attracted to men over women. |
The Kinsey scale, also called the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale, was first published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin and also featured in Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). The scale was developed to combat the assumption at the time that people are either heterosexual or homosexual and that these two types represent antitheses in the sexual world. Recognizing that a large portion of population is not completely heterosexual or homosexual and people can experience both heterosexual and homosexual behavior and psychic responses, Kinsey et al., stated: |
In response to the criticism of the Kinsey scale only measuring two dimensions of sexual orientation, Fritz Klein developed the Klein sexual orientation grid (KSOG), a multidimensional scale for describing sexual orientation. Introduced in Klein's book The Bisexual Option, the KSOG uses a 7-point scale to assess seven different dimensions of sexuality at three different points in an individual's life: past (from early adolescence up to one year ago), present (within the last 12 months), and ideal (what would you choose if it were completely your choice). |
Though sexual attraction, behavior, and identity are all components of sexual orientation, if a person defined by one of these dimensions were congruent with those defined by another dimension it would not matter which was used in assessing orientation, but this is not the case. There is "little coherent relationship between the amount and mix of homosexual and heterosexual behavior in a person's biography and that person's choice to label himself or herself as bisexual, homosexual, or heterosexual". Individuals typically experience diverse attractions and behaviors that may reflect curiosity, experimentation, social pressure and is not necessarily indicative of an underlying sexual orientation. For example, a woman may have fantasies or thoughts about sex with other women but never act on these thoughts and only have sex with opposite gender partners. If sexual orientation was being assessed based on one's sexual attraction then this individual would be considered homosexual, but her behavior indicates heterosexuality. |
In the paper "Who's Gay? Does It Matter?", Ritch Savin-Williams proposes two different approaches to assessing sexual orientation until well positioned and psychometrically sound and tested definitions are developed that would allow research to reliably identify the prevalence, causes, and consequences of homosexuality. He first suggests that greater priority should be given to sexual arousal and attraction over behaviour and identity because it is less prone to self- and other-deception, social conditions and variable meanings. To measure attraction and arousal he proposed that biological measures should be developed and used. There are numerous biological/physiological measures that exist that can measure sexual orientation such as sexual arousal, brain scans, eye tracking, body odour preference, and anatomical variations such as digit-length ratio and right or left handedness. Secondly, Savin-Williams suggests that researchers should forsake the general notion of sexual orientation altogether and assess only those components that are relevant for the research question being investigated. For example: |
These studies suggest that men and women are different in terms of sexual arousal patterns and that this is also reflected in how their genitals react to sexual stimuli of both genders or even to non-human stimuli. Sexual orientation has many dimensions (attractions, behavior, identity), of which sexual arousal is the only product of sexual attractions which can be measured at present with some degree of physical precision. Thus, the fact that women are aroused by seeing non-human primates having sex does not mean that women's sexual orientation includes this type of sexual interest. Some researchers argue that women's sexual orientation depends less on their patterns of sexual arousal than men's and that other components of sexual orientation (like emotional attachment) must be taken into account when describing women's sexual orientations. In contrast, men's sexual orientations tend to be primarily focused on the physical component of attractions and, thus, their sexual feelings are more exclusively oriented according to sex. |
One person may presume knowledge of another person's sexual orientation based upon perceived characteristics, such as appearance, clothing, tone of voice, and accompaniment by and behavior with other people. The attempt to detect sexual orientation in social situations is known as gaydar; some studies have found that guesses based on face photos perform better than chance. 2015 research suggests that "gaydar" is an alternate label for using LGBT stereotypes to infer orientation, and that face-shape is not an accurate indication of orientation. |
Estimates for the percentage of the population that are bisexual vary widely, at least in part due to differing definitions of bisexuality. Some studies only consider a person bisexual if they are nearly equally attracted to both sexes, and others consider a person bisexual if they are at all attracted to the same sex (for otherwise mostly heterosexual persons) or to the opposite sex (for otherwise mostly homosexual persons). A small percentage of people are not sexually attracted to anyone (asexuality). A study in 2004 placed the prevalence of asexuality at 1%. |
Some historians and researchers argue that the emotional and affectionate activities associated with sexual-orientation terms such as "gay" and "heterosexual" change significantly over time and across cultural boundaries. For example, in many English-speaking nations, it is assumed that same-sex kissing, particularly between men, is a sign of homosexuality, whereas various types of same-sex kissing are common expressions of friendship in other nations. Also, many modern and historic cultures have formal ceremonies expressing long-term commitment between same-sex friends, even though homosexuality itself is taboo within the cultures. |
Dell was listed at number 51 in the Fortune 500 list, until 2014. After going private in 2013, the newly confidential nature of its financial information prevents the company from being ranked by Fortune. In 2014 it was the third largest PC vendor in the world after Lenovo and HP. Dell is currently the #1 shipper of PC monitors in the world. Dell is the sixth largest company in Texas by total revenue, according to Fortune magazine. It is the second largest non-oil company in Texas – behind AT&T – and the largest company in the Greater Austin area. It was a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: DELL), as well as a component of the NASDAQ-100 and S&P 500, until it was taken private in a leveraged buyout which closed on October 30, 2013. |
Originally, Dell did not emphasize the consumer market, due to the higher costs and unacceptably low profit margins in selling to individuals and households; this changed when the company’s Internet site took off in 1996 and 1997. While the industry’s average selling price to individuals was going down, Dell's was going up, as second- and third-time computer buyers who wanted powerful computers with multiple features and did not need much technical support were choosing Dell. Dell found an opportunity among PC-savvy individuals who liked the convenience of buying direct, customizing their PC to their means, and having it delivered in days. In early 1997, Dell created an internal sales and marketing group dedicated to serving the home market and introduced a product line designed especially for individual users. |
Dell had long stuck by its direct sales model. Consumers had become the main drivers of PC sales in recent years, yet there had a decline in consumers purchasing PCs through the Web or on the phone, as increasing numbers were visiting consumer electronics retail stores to try out the devices first. Dell's rivals in the PC industry, HP, Gateway and Acer, had a long retail presence and so were well poised to take advantage of the consumer shift. The lack of a retail presence stymied Dell's attempts to offer consumer electronics such as flat-panel TVs and MP3 players. Dell responded by experimenting with mall kiosks, plus quasi-retail stores in Texas and New York. |
In the shrinking PC industry, Dell continued to lose market share, as it dropped below Lenovo in 2011 to fall to number three in the world. Dell and fellow American contemporary Hewlett Packard came under pressure from Asian PC manufacturers Lenovo, Asus, and Acer, all of which had lower production costs and willing to accept lower profit margins. In addition, while the Asian PC vendors had been improving their quality and design, for instance Lenovo's ThinkPad series was winning corporate customers away from Dell's laptops, Dell's customer service and reputation had been slipping. Dell remained the second-most profitable PC vendor, as it took 13 percent of operating profits in the PC industry during Q4 2012, behind Apple Inc.'s Macintosh that took 45 percent, seven percent at Hewlett Packard, six percent at Lenovo and Asus, and one percent for Acer. |
Dell's manufacturing process covers assembly, software installation, functional testing (including "burn-in"), and quality control. Throughout most of the company's history, Dell manufactured desktop machines in-house and contracted out manufacturing of base notebooks for configuration in-house. The company's approach has changed, as cited in the 2006 Annual Report, which states, "We are continuing to expand our use of original design manufacturing partnerships and manufacturing outsourcing relationships." The Wall Street Journal reported in September 2008 that "Dell has approached contract computer manufacturers with offers to sell" their plants. By the late 2000s, Dell's "configure to order" approach of manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications from its US facilities was no longer as efficient or competitive with high-volume Asian contract manufacturers as PCs became powerful low-cost commodities. |
Dell advertisements have appeared in several types of media including television, the Internet, magazines, catalogs and newspapers. Some of Dell Inc's marketing strategies include lowering prices at all times of the year, free bonus products (such as Dell printers), and free shipping to encourage more sales and stave off competitors. In 2006, Dell cut its prices in an effort to maintain its 19.2% market share. This also cut profit-margins by more than half, from 8.7 to 4.3 percent. To maintain its low prices, Dell continues to accept most purchases of its products via the Internet and through the telephone network, and to move its customer-care division to India and El Salvador. |
In May 2008, Dell reached an agreement with office supply chain, Officeworks (part of Coles Group), to stock a few modified models in the Inspiron desktop and notebook range. These models have slightly different model numbers, but almost replicate the ones available from the Dell Store. Dell continued its retail push in the Australian market with its partnership with Harris Technology (another part of Coles Group) in November of the same year. In addition, Dell expanded its retail distributions in Australia through an agreement with discount electrical retailer, The Good Guys, known for "Slashing Prices". Dell agreed to distribute a variety of makes of both desktops and notebooks, including Studio and XPS systems in late 2008. Dell and Dick Smith Electronics (owned by Woolworths Limited) reached an agreement to expand within Dick Smith's 400 stores throughout Australia and New Zealand in May 2009 (1 year since Officeworks — owned by Coles Group — reached a deal). The retailer has agreed to distribute a variety of Inspiron and Studio notebooks, with minimal Studio desktops from the Dell range. As of 2009[update], Dell continues to run and operate its various kiosks in 18 shopping centres throughout Australia. On March 31, 2010 Dell announced to Australian Kiosk employees that they were shutting down the Australian/New Zealand Dell kiosk program. |
On August 17, 2007, Dell Inc. announced that after an internal investigation into its accounting practices it would restate and reduce earnings from 2003 through to the first quarter of 2007 by a total amount of between $50 million and $150 million, or 2 cents to 7 cents per share. The investigation, begun in November 2006, resulted from concerns raised by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over some documents and information that Dell Inc. had submitted. It was alleged that Dell had not disclosed large exclusivity payments received from Intel for agreeing not to buy processors from rival manufacturer AMD. In 2010 Dell finally paid $100 million to settle the SEC's charges of fraud. Michael Dell and other executives also paid penalties and suffered other sanctions, without admitting or denying the charges. |
In the mid-1990s, Dell expanded beyond desktop computers and laptops by selling servers, starting with low-end servers. The major three providers of servers at the time were IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Compaq, many of which were based on proprietary technology, such as IBM's Power4 microprocessors or various proprietary versions of the Unix operating system. Dell's new PowerEdge servers did not require a major investment in proprietary technologies, as they ran Microsoft Windows NT on Intel chips, and could be built cheaper than its competitors. Consequently, Dell's enterprise revenues, almost nonexistent in 1994, accounted for 13 percent of the company's total intake by 1998. Three years later, Dell passed Compaq as the top provider of Intel-based servers, with 31 percent of the market. Dell's first acquisition occurred in 1999 with the purchase of ConvergeNet Technologies for $332 million, after Dell had failed to develop an enterprise storage system in-house; ConvergeNet's elegant but complex technology did not fit in with Dell's commodity-producer business model, forcing Dell to write down the entire value of the acquisition. |
The slowing sales growth has been attributed to the maturing PC market, which constituted 66% of Dell's sales, and analysts suggested that Dell needed to make inroads into non-PC businesses segments such as storage, services and servers. Dell's price advantage was tied to its ultra-lean manufacturing for desktop PCs, but this became less important as savings became harder to find inside the company's supply chain, and as competitors such as Hewlett-Packard and Acer made their PC manufacturing operations more efficient to match Dell, weakening Dell's traditional price differentiation. Throughout the entire PC industry, declines in prices along with commensurate increases in performance meant that Dell had fewer opportunities to upsell to their customers (a lucrative strategy of encouraging buyers to upgrade the processor or memory). As a result, the company was selling a greater proportion of inexpensive PCs than before, which eroded profit margins. The laptop segment had become the fastest-growing of the PC market, but Dell produced low-cost notebooks in China like other PC manufacturers which eliminated Dell's manufacturing cost advantages, plus Dell's reliance on Internet sales meant that it missed out on growing notebook sales in big box stores. CNET has suggested that Dell was getting trapped in the increasing commoditization of high volume low margin computers, which prevented it from offering more exciting devices that consumers demanded. |
By the late 2000s, Dell's "configure to order" approach of manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications from its US facilities was no longer as efficient or competitive with high-volume Asian contract manufacturers as PCs became powerful low-cost commodities. Dell closed plants that produced desktop computers for the North American market, including the Mort Topfer Manufacturing Center in Austin, Texas (original location) and Lebanon, Tennessee (opened in 1999) in 2008 and early 2009, respectively. The desktop production plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, received US$280 million in incentives from the state and opened in 2005, but ceased operations in November 2010. Dell's contract with the state required them to repay the incentives for failing to meet the conditions, and they sold the North Carolina plant to Herbalife. Most of the work that used to take place in Dell's U.S. plants was transferred to contract manufacturers in Asia and Mexico, or some of Dell's own factories overseas. The Miami, Florida, facility of its Alienware subsidiary remains in operation, while Dell continues to produce its servers (its most profitable products) in Austin, Texas. On January 8, 2009, Dell announced the closure of its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland, with the loss of 1,900 jobs and the transfer of production to its plant in Łodź in Poland. |
The announcement came two years after Dell Inc. returned to private ownership, claiming that it faced bleak prospects and would need several years out of the public eye to rebuild its business. It's thought that the company's value has roughly doubled since then. EMC was being pressured by Elliott Management, a hedge fund holding 2.2% of EMC's stock, to reorganize their unusual "Federation" structure, in which EMC's divisions were effectively being run as independent companies. Elliott argued this structure deeply undervalued EMC's core "EMC II" data storage business, and that increasing competition between EMC II and VMware products was confusing the market and hindering both companies. The Wall Street Journal estimated that in 2014 Dell had revenue of $27.3 billion from personal computers and $8.9bn from servers, while EMC had $16.5bn from EMC II, $1bn from RSA Security, $6bn from VMware, and $230 million from Pivotal Software. EMC owns around 80 percent of the stock of VMware. The proposed acquisition will maintain VMware as a separate company, held via a new tracking stock, while the other parts of EMC will be rolled into Dell. Once the acquisition closes Dell will again publish quarterly financial results, having ceased these on going private in 2013. |
Dell opened plants in Penang, Malaysia in 1995, and in Xiamen, China in 1999. These facilities serve the Asian market and assemble 95% of Dell notebooks. Dell Inc. has invested[when?] an estimated $60 million in a new manufacturing unit in Chennai, India, to support the sales of its products in the Indian subcontinent. Indian-made products bear the "Made in India" mark. In 2007 the Chennai facility had the target of producing 400,000 desktop PCs, and plans envisaged it starting to produce notebook PCs and other products in the second half of 2007.[citation needed] |
The board consists of nine directors. Michael Dell, the founder of the company, serves as chairman of the board and chief executive officer. Other board members include Don Carty, William Gray, Judy Lewent, Klaus Luft, Alex Mandl, Michael A. Miles, and Sam Nunn. Shareholders elect the nine board members at meetings, and those board members who do not get a majority of votes must submit a resignation to the board, which will subsequently choose whether or not to accept the resignation. The board of directors usually sets up five committees having oversight over specific matters. These committees include the Audit Committee, which handles accounting issues, including auditing and reporting; the Compensation Committee, which approves compensation for the CEO and other employees of the company; the Finance Committee, which handles financial matters such as proposed mergers and acquisitions; the Governance and Nominating Committee, which handles various corporate matters (including nomination of the board); and the Antitrust Compliance Committee, which attempts to prevent company practices from violating antitrust laws.[citation needed] |
In the early 1990s, Dell sold its products through Best Buy, Costco and Sam's Club stores in the United States. Dell stopped this practice in 1994, citing low profit-margins on the business, exclusively distributing through a direct-sales model for the next decade. In 2003, Dell briefly sold products in Sears stores in the U.S. In 2007, Dell started shipping its products to major retailers in the U.S. once again, starting with Sam's Club and Wal-Mart. Staples, the largest office-supply retailer in the U.S., and Best Buy, the largest electronics retailer in the U.S., became Dell retail partners later that same year. |
Dell became the first company in the information technology industry to establish a product-recycling goal (in 2004) and completed the implementation of its global consumer recycling-program in 2006. On February 6, 2007, the National Recycling Coalition awarded Dell its "Recycling Works" award for efforts to promote producer responsibility. On July 19, 2007, Dell announced that it had exceeded targets in working to achieve a multi-year goal of recovering 275 million pounds of computer equipment by 2009. The company reported the recovery of 78 million pounds (nearly 40,000 tons) of IT equipment from customers in 2006, a 93-percent increase over 2005; and 12.4% of the equipment Dell sold seven years earlier. |
In the 1990s, Dell switched from using primarily ATX motherboards and PSU to using boards and power supplies with mechanically identical but differently wired connectors. This meant customers wishing to upgrade their hardware would have to replace parts with scarce Dell-compatible parts instead of commonly available parts. While motherboard power connections reverted to the industry standard in 2003, Dell continues to remain secretive about their motherboard pin-outs for peripherals (such as MMC readers and power on/off switches and LEDs). |
Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created Dell Computer Corporation, which at the time did business as PC's Limited, while a student of the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. Dell dropped out of school to focus full-time on his fledgling business, after getting $1,000 in expansion-capital from his family. In 1985, the company produced the first computer of its own design, the Turbo PC, which sold for $795. PC's Limited advertised its systems in national computer magazines for sale directly to consumers and custom assembled each ordered unit according to a selection of options. The company grossed more than $73 million in its first year of operation. |
From 1997 to 2004, Dell enjoyed steady growth and it gained market share from competitors even during industry slumps. During the same period, rival PC vendors such as Compaq, Gateway, IBM, Packard Bell, and AST Research struggled and eventually left the market or were bought out. Dell surpassed Compaq to become the largest PC manufacturer in 1999. Operating costs made up only 10 percent of Dell's $35 billion in revenue in 2002, compared with 21 percent of revenue at Hewlett-Packard, 25 percent at Gateway, and 46 percent at Cisco. In 2002, when Compaq merged with Hewlett Packard (the fourth-place PC maker), the newly combined Hewlett Packard took the top spot but struggled and Dell soon regained its lead. Dell grew the fastest in the early 2000s. |
Dell had a reputation as a company that relied upon supply chain efficiencies to sell established technologies at low prices, instead of being an innovator. By the mid-2000s many analysts were looking to innovating companies as the next source of growth in the technology sector. Dell's low spending on R&D relative to its revenue (compared to IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Apple Inc.)—which worked well in the commoditized PC market—prevented it from making inroads into more lucrative segments, such as MP3 players and later mobile devices. Increasing spending on R&D would have cut into the operating margins that the company emphasized. Dell had done well with a horizontal organization that focused on PCs when the computing industry moved to horizontal mix-and-match layers in the 1980s, but by the mid-2000 the industry shifted to vertically integrated stacks to deliver complete IT solutions and Dell lagged far behind competitors like Hewlett Packard and Oracle. |
Dell announced a change campaign called "Dell 2.0," reducing the number of employees and diversifying the company's products. While chairman of the board after relinquishing his CEO position, Michael Dell still had significant input in the company during Rollins' years as CEO. With the return of Michael Dell as CEO, the company saw immediate changes in operations, the exodus of many senior vice-presidents and new personnel brought in from outside the company. Michael Dell announced a number of initiatives and plans (part of the "Dell 2.0" initiative) to improve the company's financial performance. These include elimination of 2006 bonuses for employees with some discretionary awards, reduction in the number of managers reporting directly to Michael Dell from 20 to 12, and reduction of "bureaucracy". Jim Schneider retired as CFO and was replaced by Donald Carty, as the company came under an SEC probe for its accounting practices. |
Dell has been attempting to offset its declining PC business, which still accounted for half of its revenue and generates steady cash flow, by expanding into the enterprise market with servers, networking, software, and services. It avoided many of the acquisition writedowns and management turnover that plagued its chief rival Hewlett Packard. Dell also managed some success in taking advantage of its high-touch direct sales heritage to establish close relationships and design solutions for clients. Despite spending $13 billion on acquisitions to diversify its portfolio beyond hardware, the company was unable to convince the market that it could thrive or made the transformation in the post-PC world, as it suffered continued declines in revenue and share price. Dell's market share in the corporate segment was previously a "moat" against rivals but this has no longer been the case as sales and profits have fallen precipitously. |
Dell facilities in the United States are located in Austin, Texas; Plano, Texas; Nashua, New Hampshire; Nashville, Tennessee; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Peoria, Illinois; Hillsboro, Oregon (Portland area); Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Eden Prairie, Minnesota (Dell Compellent); Bowling Green, Kentucky; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Miami, Florida. Facilities located abroad include Penang, Malaysia; Xiamen, China; Bracknell, UK; Manila, Philippines Chennai, India; Hyderabad, India; Noida, India; Hortolandia and Porto Alegre, Brazil; Bratislava, Slovakia; Łódź, Poland; Panama City, Panama; Dublin and Limerick, Ireland; and Casablanca, Morocco. |
Assembly of desktop computers for the North American market formerly took place at Dell plants in Austin, Texas (original location) and Lebanon, Tennessee (opened in 1999), which have been closed in 2008 and early 2009, respectively. The plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina received $280 million USD in incentives from the state and opened in 2005, but ceased operations in November 2010, and Dell's contract with the state requires them to repay the incentives for failing to meet the conditions. Most of the work that used to take place in Dell's U.S. plants was transferred to contract manufacturers in Asia and Mexico, or some of Dell's own factories overseas. The Miami, Florida facility of its Alienware subsidiary remains in operation, while Dell continues to produce its servers (its most profitable products) in Austin, Texas. |
Dell committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its global activities by 40% by 2015, with 2008 fiscal year as the baseline year. It is listed in Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics that scores leading electronics manufacturers according to their policies on sustainability, climate and energy and how green their products are. In November 2011, Dell ranked 2nd out of 15 listed electronics makers (increasing its score to 5.1 from 4.9, which it gained in the previous ranking from October 2010). |
In July 2009, Dell apologized after drawing the ire of the Taiwanese Consumer Protection Commission for twice refusing to honour a flood of orders against unusually low prices offered on its Taiwanese website. In the first instance, Dell offered a 19" LCD panel for $15. In the second instance, Dell offered its Latitude E4300 notebook at NT$18,558 (US$580), 70% lower than usual price of NT$60,900 (US$1900). Concerning the E4300, rather than honour the discount taking a significant loss, the firm withdrew orders and offered a voucher of up to NT$20,000 (US$625) a customer in compensation. The consumer rights authorities in Taiwan fined Dell NT$1 million (US$31250) for customer rights infringements. Many consumers sued the firm for the unfair compensation. A court in southern Taiwan ordered the firm to deliver 18 laptops and 76 flat-panel monitors to 31 consumers for NT$490,000 (US$15,120), less than a third of the normal price. The court said the event could hardly be regarded as mistakes, as the prestigious firm said the company mispriced its products twice in Taiwanese website within 3 weeks. |
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals, HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players, and electronics built by other manufacturers. The company is well known for its innovations in supply chain management and electronic commerce, particularly its direct-sales model and its "build-to-order" or "configure to order" approach to manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications. Dell was a pure hardware vendor for much of its existence, but with the acquisition in 2009 of Perot Systems, Dell entered the market for IT services. The company has since made additional acquisitions in storage and networking systems, with the aim of expanding their portfolio from offering computers only to delivering complete solutions for enterprise customers. |
In 1993, to complement its own direct sales channel, Dell planned to sell PCs at big-box retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, which would have brought in an additional $125 million in annual revenue. Bain consultant Kevin Rollins persuaded Michael Dell to pull out of these deals, believing they would be money losers in the long run. Margins at retail were thin at best and Dell left the reseller channel in 1994. Rollins would soon join Dell full-time and eventually become the company President and CEO. |
In 1986, Michael Dell brought in Lee Walker, a 51-year-old venture capitalist, as president and chief operating officer, to serve as Michael's mentor and implement Michael's ideas for growing the company. Walker was also instrumental in recruiting members to the board of directors when the company went public in 1988. Walker retired in 1990 due to health, and Michael Dell hired Morton Meyerson, former CEO and president of Electronic Data Systems to transform the company from a fast-growing medium-sized firm into a billion-dollar enterprise. |
Despite plans of expanding into other global regions and product segments, Dell was heavily dependent on U.S. corporate PC market, as desktop PCs sold to both commercial and corporate customers accounted for 32 percent of its revenue, 85 percent of its revenue comes from businesses, and Sixty-four percent of its revenue comes from North and South America, according to its 2006 third-quarter results. U.S. shipments of desktop PCs were shrinking, and the corporate PC market which purchases PCs in upgrade cycles had largely decided to take a break from buying new systems. The last cycle started around 2002, three or so years after companies started buying PCs ahead of the perceived Y2K problems, and corporate clients were not expected to upgrade again until extensive testing of Microsoft's Windows Vista (expected in early 2007), putting the next upgrade cycle around 2008. Heavily depending on PCs, Dell had to slash prices to boost sales volumes, while demanding deep cuts from suppliers. |
The release of Apple's iPad tablet computer had a negative impact on Dell and other major PC vendors, as consumers switched away from desktop and laptop PCs. Dell's own mobility division has not managed success with developing smartphones or tablets, whether running Windows or Google Android. The Dell Streak was a failure commercially and critically due to its outdated OS, numerous bugs, and low resolution screen. InfoWorld suggested that Dell and other OEMs saw tablets as a short-term, low-investment opportunity running Google Android, an approach that neglected user interface and failed to gain long term market traction with consumers. Dell has responded by pushing higher-end PCs, such as the XPS line of notebooks, which do not compete with the Apple iPad and Kindle Fire tablets. The growing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers instead of PCs drove Dell's consumer segment to an operating loss in Q3 2012. In December 2012, Dell suffered its first decline in holiday sales in five years, despite the introduction of Windows 8. |
Dell's reputation for poor customer service, since 2002, which was exacerbated as it moved call centres offshore and as its growth outstripped its technical support infrastructure, came under increasing scrutiny on the Web. The original Dell model was known for high customer satisfaction when PCs sold for thousands but by the 2000s, the company could not justify that level of service when computers in the same lineup sold for hundreds. Rollins responded by shifting Dick Hunter from head of manufacturing to head of customer service. Hunter, who noted that Dell's DNA of cost-cutting "got in the way," aimed to reduce call transfer times and have call center representatives resolve inquiries in one call. By 2006, Dell had spent $100 million in just a few months to improve on this, and rolled out DellConnect to answer customer inquiries more quickly. In July 2006, the company started its Direct2Dell blog, and then in February 2007, Michael Dell launched IdeaStorm.com, asking customers for advice including selling Linux computers and reducing the promotional "bloatware" on PCs. These initiatives did manage to cut the negative blog posts from 49% to 22%, as well as reduce the "Dell Hell" prominent on Internet search engines. |
In March 2013, the Blackstone Group and Carl Icahn expressed interest in purchasing Dell. In April 2013, Blackstone withdrew their offer, citing deteriorating business. Other private equity firms such as KKR & Co. and TPG Capital declined to submit alternative bids for Dell, citing the uncertain market for personal computers and competitive pressures, so the "wide-open bidding war" never materialized. Analysts said that the biggest challenge facing Silver Lake would be to find an “exit strategy” to profit from its investment, which would be when the company would hold an IPO to go public again, and one warned “But even if you can get a $25bn enterprise value for Dell, it will take years to get out.” |
On April 23, 2008, Dell announced the closure of one of its biggest Canadian call-centers in Kanata, Ontario, terminating approximately 1100 employees, with 500 of those redundancies effective on the spot, and with the official closure of the center scheduled for the summer. The call-center had opened in 2006 after the city of Ottawa won a bid to host it. Less than a year later, Dell planned to double its workforce to nearly 3,000 workers add a new building. These plans were reversed, due to a high Canadian dollar that made the Ottawa staff relatively expensive, and also as part of Dell's turnaround, which involved moving these call-center jobs offshore to cut costs. The company had also announced the shutdown of its Edmonton, Alberta office, losing 900 jobs. In total, Dell announced the ending of about 8,800 jobs in 2007–2008 — 10% of its workforce. |
The combined business is expected to address the markets for scale-out architecture, converged infrastructure and private cloud computing, playing to the strengths of both EMC and Dell. Commentators have questioned the deal, with FBR Capital Markets saying that though it makes a "ton of sense" for Dell, it's a "nightmare scenario that would lack strategic synergies" for EMC. Fortune said there was a lot for Dell to like in EMC's portfolio, but "does it all add up enough to justify tens of billions of dollars for the entire package? Probably not." The Register reported the view of William Blair & Company that the merger would "blow up the current IT chess board", forcing other IT infrastructure vendors to restructure to achieve scale and vertical integration. The value of VMware stock fell 10% after the announcement, valuing the deal at around $63–64bn rather than the $67bn originally reported. |
After several weeks of rumors, which started around January 11, 2013, Dell announced on February 5, 2013 that it had struck a $24.4 billion leveraged buyout deal, that would have delisted its shares from the NASDAQ and Hong Kong Stock Exchange and taken it private. Reuters reported that Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, aided by a $2 billion loan from Microsoft, would acquire the public shares at $13.65 apiece. The $24.4 billion buyout was projected to be the largest leveraged buyout backed by private equity since the 2007 financial crisis. It is also the largest technology buyout ever, surpassing the 2006 buyout of Freescale Semiconductor for $17.5 billion. |
In 2000, Dell announced that it would lease 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) of space in the Las Cimas office complex in unincorporated Travis County, Texas, between Austin and West Lake Hills, to house the company's executive offices and corporate headquarters. 100 senior executives were scheduled to work in the building by the end of 2000. In January 2001, the company leased the space in Las Cimas 2, located along Loop 360. Las Cimas 2 housed Dell's executives, the investment operations, and some corporate functions. Dell also had an option for 138,000 square feet (12,800 m2) of space in Las Cimas 3. After a slowdown in business required reducing employees and production capacity, Dell decided to sublease its offices in two buildings in the Las Cimas office complex. In 2002 Dell announced that it planned to sublease its space to another tenant; the company planned to move its headquarters back to Round Rock once a tenant was secured. By 2003, Dell moved its headquarters back to Round Rock. It leased all of Las Cimas I and II, with a total of 312,000 square feet (29,000 m2), for about a seven-year period after 2003. By that year roughly 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2) of that space was absorbed by new subtenants. |
Dell previously had its headquarters in the Arboretum complex in northern Austin, Texas. In 1989 Dell occupied 127,000 square feet (11,800 m2) in the Arboretum complex. In 1990, Dell had 1,200 employees in its headquarters. In 1993, Dell submitted a document to Round Rock officials, titled "Dell Computer Corporate Headquarters, Round Rock, Texas, May 1993 Schematic Design." Despite the filing, during that year the company said that it was not going to move its headquarters. In 1994, Dell announced that it was moving most of its employees out of the Arboretum, but that it was going to continue to occupy the top floor of the Arboretum and that the company's official headquarters address would continue to be the Arboretum. The top floor continued to hold Dell's board room, demonstration center, and visitor meeting room. Less than one month prior to August 29, 1994, Dell moved 1,100 customer support and telephone sales employees to Round Rock. Dell's lease in the Arboretum had been scheduled to expire in 1994. |
Dell assembled computers for the EMEA market at the Limerick facility in the Republic of Ireland, and once employed about 4,500 people in that country. Dell began manufacturing in Limerick in 1991 and went on to become Ireland's largest exporter of goods and its second-largest company and foreign investor. On January 8, 2009, Dell announced that it would move all Dell manufacturing in Limerick to Dell's new plant in the Polish city of Łódź by January 2010. European Union officials said they would investigate a €52.7million aid package the Polish government used to attract Dell away from Ireland. European Manufacturing Facility 1 (EMF1, opened in 1990) and EMF3 form part of the Raheen Industrial Estate near Limerick. EMF2 (previously a Wang facility, later occupied by Flextronics, situated in Castletroy) closed in 2002,[citation needed] and Dell Inc. has consolidated production into EMF3 (EMF1 now[when?] contains only offices). Subsidies from the Polish government did keep Dell for a long time. After ending assembly in the Limerick plant the Cherrywood Technology Campus in Dublin was the largest Dell office in the republic with over 1200 people in sales (mainly UK & Ireland), support (enterprise support for EMEA) and research and development for cloud computing, but no more manufacturing except Dell's Alienware subsidiary, which manufactures PCs in an Athlone, Ireland plant. Whether this facility will remain in Ireland is not certain. Construction of EMF4 in Łódź, Poland has started[update]: Dell started production there in autumn 2007. |
In addition, the company provides protection services, advisory services, multivendor hardware support, "how-to" support for software applications, collaborative support with many third-party vendors, and online parts and labor dispatching for customers who diagnose and troubleshoot their hardware. Dell also provides Dell ProSupport customers access to a crisis-center to handle major outages, or problems caused by natural disasters. Dell also provide on-line support by using the computer's service-tag that provides full list of the hardware elements installed originally, purchase date and provides the latest upgrades for the original hardware drivers. |
Dell service and support brands include the Dell Solution Station (extended domestic support services, previously "Dell on Call"), Dell Support Center (extended support services abroad), Dell Business Support (a commercial service-contract that provides an industry-certified technician with a lower call-volume than in normal queues), Dell Everdream Desktop Management ("Software as a Service" remote-desktop management, originally a SaaS company founded by Elon Musk's cousin, Lyndon Rive, which Dell bought in 2007), and Your Tech Team (a support-queue available to home users who purchased their systems either through Dell's website or through Dell phone-centers). |
In late 2006[update], Dell lost its lead in the PC-business to Hewlett-Packard. Both Gartner and IDC estimated that in the third quarter of 2006, HP shipped more units worldwide than Dell did. Dell's 3.6% growth paled in comparison to HP's 15% growth during the same period. The problem got worse in the fourth quarter, when Gartner estimated that Dell PC shipments declined 8.9% (versus HP's 23.9% growth). As a result, at the end of 2006 Dell's overall PC market-share stood at 13.9% (versus HP's 17.4%). |
Dell was the first company to publicly state a timeline for the elimination of toxic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which it planned to phase out by the end of 2009. It revised this commitment and now aims to remove these toxics by the end of 2011 but only in its computing products. In March 2010, Greenpeace activists protested at Dell offices in Bangalore, Amsterdam and Copenhagen calling for Dell’s founder and CEO Michael Dell to ‘drop the toxics’ and claiming that Dell’s aspiration to be ‘the greenest technology company on the planet’ was ‘hypocritical’. Dell has launched its first products completely free of PVC and BFRs with the G-Series monitors (G2210 and G2410) in 2009. |
In 2006, Dell acknowledged that it had problems with customer service. Issues included call transfers of more than 45% of calls and long wait times. Dell's blog detailed the response: "We're spending more than a $100 million — and a lot of blood, sweat and tears of talented people — to fix this." Later in the year, the company increased its spending on customer service to $150 million. Despite significant investment in this space, Dell continues to face public scrutiny with even the company's own website littered with complaints regarding the issue escalation process.[original research?] |
The company aims to reduce its external environmental impact through energy-efficient evolution of products, and also reduce its direct operational impact through energy-efficiency programs. Internal energy-efficiency programs reportedly save the company more than $3 million annually in energy-cost savings. The largest component of the company's internal energy-efficiency savings comes through PC power management: the company expects to save $1.8 million in energy costs through using specialized energy-management software on a network of 50,000 PCs. |
If a defendant is sentenced to death at the trial level, the case then goes into a direct review. The direct review process is a typical legal appeal. An appellate court examines the record of evidence presented in the trial court and the law that the lower court applied and decides whether the decision was legally sound or not. Direct review of a capital sentencing hearing will result in one of three outcomes. If the appellate court finds that no significant legal errors occurred in the capital sentencing hearing, the appellate court will affirm the judgment, or let the sentence stand. If the appellate court finds that significant legal errors did occur, then it will reverse the judgment, or nullify the sentence and order a new capital sentencing hearing. Lastly, if the appellate court finds that no reasonable juror could find the defendant eligible for the death penalty, a rarity, then it will order the defendant acquitted, or not guilty, of the crime for which he/she was given the death penalty, and order him sentenced to the next most severe punishment for which the offense is eligible. About 60 percent survive the process of direct review intact. |
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a state prisoner is ordinarily only allowed one suit for habeas corpus in federal court. If the federal courts refuse to issue a writ of habeas corpus, an execution date may be set. In recent times, however, prisoners have postponed execution through a final round of federal litigation using the Civil Rights Act of 1871 — codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1983 — which allows people to bring lawsuits against state actors to protect their federal constitutional and statutory rights. |
The moratorium ended on January 17, 1977 with the shooting of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in Utah. The first use of the electric chair after the moratorium was the electrocution of John Spenkelink in Florida on May 25, 1979. The first use of the gas chamber after the moratorium was the gassing of Jesse Bishop in Nevada on October 22, 1979. The first use of the gallows after the moratorium was the hanging of Westley Allan Dodd in Washington on January 5, 1993. The first use of lethal injection was on December 7, 1982, when Charles Brooks, Jr., was executed in Texas. |
Electrocution was the preferred method of execution during the 20th century. Electric chairs have commonly been nicknamed Old Sparky; however, Alabama's electric chair became known as the "Yellow Mama" due to its unique color. Some, particularly in Florida, were noted for malfunctions, which caused discussion of their cruelty and resulted in a shift to lethal injection as the preferred method of execution. Although lethal injection dominates as a method of execution, some states allow prisoners on death row to choose the method used to execute them. |
Other states with long histories of no death penalty include Wisconsin (the only state with only one execution), Rhode Island (although later reintroduced, it was unused and abolished again), Maine, North Dakota, Minnesota, West Virginia, Iowa, and Vermont. The District of Columbia has also abolished the death penalty; it was last used in 1957. Oregon abolished the death penalty through an overwhelming majority in a 1964 public referendum but reinstated it in a 1984 joint death penalty/life imprisonment referendum by an even higher margin after a similar 1978 referendum succeeded but was not implemented due to judicial rulings. |
Within the context of the overall murder rate, the death penalty cannot be said to be widely or routinely used in the United States; in recent years the average has been about one execution for about every 700 murders committed, or 1 execution for about every 325 murder convictions. However, 32 of the 50 states still execute people. Among them, Alabama has the highest per capita rate of death sentences. This is due to judges overriding life imprisonment sentences and imposing the death penalty. No other states allow this. |
Puerto Rico's constitution expressly forbids capital punishment, stating "The death penalty shall not exist", setting it apart from all U.S. states and territories other than Michigan, which also has a constitutional prohibition (eleven other states and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment through statutory law). However, capital punishment is still applicable to offenses committed in Puerto Rico, if they fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government, though federal death penalty prosecutions there have generated significant controversy. |
Capital punishment was suspended in the United States from 1972 through 1976 primarily as a result of the Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia. The last pre-Furman execution was that of Luis Monge on June 2, 1967. In this case, the court found that the death penalty was being imposed in an unconstitutional manner, on the grounds of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court has never ruled the death penalty to be per se unconstitutional. |
Present-day statutes from across the nation use the same words and phrases, requiring modern executions to take place within a wall or enclosure to exclude public view. Connecticut General Statute § 54–100 requires death sentences to be conducted in an "enclosure" which "shall be so constructed as to exclude public view." Kentucky Revised Statute 431.220 and Missouri Revised Statute § 546.730 contain substantially identical language. New Mexico's former death penalty, since repealed, see N.M. Stat. § 31-14-12, required executions be conducted in a "room or place enclosed from public view." Similarly, a dormant Massachusetts law, see Mass. Gen. Law ch. 279 § 60, required executions to take place "within an enclosure or building." North Carolina General Statute § 15-188 requires death sentences to be executed "within the walls" of the penitentiary, as do Oklahoma Statute Title 22 § 1015 and Montana Code § 46-19-103. Ohio Revised Code § 2949.22 requires that "[t]he enclosure shall exclude public view." Similarly, Tennessee Code § 40-23-116 requires "an enclosure" for "strict seclusion and privacy." United States Code Title 18 § 3596 and the Code of Federal Regulations 28 CFR 26.4 limit the witnesses permitted at federal executions. |
In 1976, contemporaneously with Woodson and Roberts, the Court decided Gregg v. Georgia and upheld a procedure in which the trial of capital crimes was bifurcated into guilt-innocence and sentencing phases. At the first proceeding, the jury decides the defendant's guilt; if the defendant is innocent or otherwise not convicted of first-degree murder, the death penalty will not be imposed. At the second hearing, the jury determines whether certain statutory aggravating factors exist, whether any mitigating factors exist, and, in many jurisdictions, weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors in assessing the ultimate penalty – either death or life in prison, either with or without parole. |
Possibly in part due to expedited federal habeas corpus procedures embodied in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the pace of executions picked up, reaching a peak of 98 in 1999 and then they declined gradually to 28 in 2015. Since the death penalty was reauthorized in 1976, 1,411 people have been executed, almost exclusively by the states, with most occurring after 1990. Texas has accounted for over one-third of modern executions (although only two death sentences were imposed in Texas during 2015, with the courts preferring to issue sentences of life without parole instead) and over four times as many as Oklahoma, the state with the second-highest number. California has the greatest number of prisoners on death row, has issued the highest number of death sentences but has held relatively few executions. |
As of November 2008, there is only one person on death row facing capital punishment who has not been convicted of murder. Demarcus Sears remains under a death sentence in Georgia for the crime of "kidnapping with bodily injury." Sears was convicted in 1986 for the kidnapping and bodily injury of victim Gloria Ann Wilbur. Wilbur was kidnapped and beaten in Georgia, raped in Tennessee, and murdered in Kentucky. Sears was never charged with the murder of Wilbur in Kentucky, but was sentenced to death by a jury in Georgia for "kidnapping with bodily injury." |
At times when a death sentence is affirmed on direct review, it is considered final. Yet, supplemental methods to attack the judgment, though less familiar than a typical appeal, do remain. These supplemental remedies are considered collateral review, that is, an avenue for upsetting judgments that have become otherwise final. Where the prisoner received his death sentence in a state-level trial, as is usually the case, the first step in collateral review is state collateral review. (If the case is a federal death penalty case, it proceeds immediately from direct review to federal habeas corpus.) Although all states have some type of collateral review, the process varies widely from state to state. Generally, the purpose of these collateral proceedings is to permit the prisoner to challenge his sentence on grounds that could not have been raised reasonably at trial or on direct review. Most often these are claims, such as ineffective assistance of counsel, which requires the court to consider new evidence outside the original trial record, something courts may not do in an ordinary appeal. State collateral review, though an important step in that it helps define the scope of subsequent review through federal habeas corpus, is rarely successful in and of itself. Only around 6 percent of death sentences are overturned on state collateral review. In 2010, the death sentences of 53 inmates were overturned as a result of legal appeals or high court reversals. |
Traditionally, Section 1983 was of limited use for a state prisoner under sentence of death because the Supreme Court has held that habeas corpus, not Section 1983, is the only vehicle by which a state prisoner can challenge his judgment of death. In the 2006 Hill v. McDonough case, however, the United States Supreme Court approved the use of Section 1983 as a vehicle for challenging a state's method of execution as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The theory is that a prisoner bringing such a challenge is not attacking directly his judgment of death, but rather the means by which that the judgment will be carried out. Therefore, the Supreme Court held in the Hill case that a prisoner can use Section 1983 rather than habeas corpus to bring the lawsuit. Yet, as Clarence Hill's own case shows, lower federal courts have often refused to hear suits challenging methods of execution on the ground that the prisoner brought the claim too late and only for the purposes of delay. Further, the Court's decision in Baze v. Rees, upholding a lethal injection method used by many states, has drastically narrowed the opportunity for relief through Section 1983. |
The largest single execution in United States history was the hanging of 38 American Indians convicted of murder and rape during the Dakota War of 1862. They were executed simultaneously on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota. A single blow from an axe cut the rope that held the large four-sided platform, and the prisoners (except for one whose rope had broken and who had to be re-hanged) fell to their deaths. The second-largest mass execution was also a hanging: the execution of 13 African-American soldiers for taking part in the Houston Riot of 1917. The largest non-military mass execution occurred in one of the original thirteen colonies in 1723, when 26 convicted pirates were hanged in Newport, Rhode Island by order of the Admiralty Court. |
After a death sentence is affirmed in state collateral review, the prisoner may file for federal habeas corpus, which is a unique type of lawsuit that can be brought in federal courts. Federal habeas corpus is a species of collateral review, and it is the only way that state prisoners may attack a death sentence in federal court (other than petitions for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court after both direct review and state collateral review). The scope of federal habeas corpus is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which restricted significantly its previous scope. The purpose of federal habeas corpus is to ensure that state courts, through the process of direct review and state collateral review, have done at least a reasonable job in protecting the prisoner's federal constitutional rights. Prisoners may also use federal habeas corpus suits to bring forth new evidence that they are innocent of the crime, though to be a valid defense at this late stage in the process, evidence of innocence must be truly compelling. |
In New Jersey and Illinois, all death row inmates had their sentences commuted to life in prison without parole when the death penalty repeal bills were signed into law. In Maryland, Governor Martin O'Malley commuted the state's four remaining death sentences to life in prison without parole in January 2015. While the bill repealing capital punishment in Connecticut was not retroactive, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in 2015 in State v. Santiago that the legislature's decision to prospectively abolish capital punishment rendered it an offense to "evolving standards of decency," thus commuting the sentences of the 11 men remaining on death row to life in prison without parole. New Mexico may yet execute two condemned inmates sentenced prior to abolition, and Nebraska has ten death row inmates who may still be executed despite abolition. |
The United States Supreme Court in Penry v. Lynaugh and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Bigby v. Dretke have been clear in their decisions that jury instructions in death penalty cases that do not ask about mitigating factors regarding the defendant's mental health violate the defendant's Eighth Amendment rights, saying that the jury is to be instructed to consider mitigating factors when answering unrelated questions. This ruling suggests that specific explanations to the jury are necessary to weigh mitigating factors. |
Several states have never had capital punishment, the first being Michigan, which abolished it shortly after entering the Union. (However, the United States government executed Tony Chebatoris at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan in 1938.) Article 4, Section 46 of Michigan's fourth Constitution (ratified in 1963; effective in 1964) prohibits any law providing for the penalty of death. Attempts to change the provision have failed. In 2004, a constitutional amendment proposed to allow capital punishment in some circumstances failed to make it on the November ballot after a resolution failed in the legislature and a public initiative failed to gather enough signatures. |
The method of execution of federal prisoners for offenses under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is that of the state in which the conviction took place. If the state has no death penalty, the judge must choose a state with the death penalty for carrying out the execution. For offenses under the Drug Kingpin Act of 1988, the method of execution is lethal injection. The Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana is currently the home of the only death chamber for federal death penalty recipients in the United States, where inmates are put to death by lethal injection. The complex has so far been the only location used for federal executions post-Gregg. Timothy McVeigh and Juan Garza were put to death in June 2001, and Louis Jones, Jr. was put to death on March 18, 2003. |
In October 2009, the American Law Institute voted to disavow the framework for capital punishment that it had created in 1962, as part of the Model Penal Code, "in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment." A study commissioned by the institute had said that experience had proved that the goal of individualized decisions about who should be executed and the goal of systemic fairness for minorities and others could not be reconciled. |
In 1977, the Supreme Court's Coker v. Georgia decision barred the death penalty for rape of an adult woman, and implied that the death penalty was inappropriate for any offense against another person other than murder. Prior to the decision, the death penalty for rape of an adult had been gradually phased out in the United States, and at the time of the decision, the State of Georgia and the U.S. Federal government were the only two jurisdictions to still retain the death penalty for that offense. However, three states maintained the death penalty for child rape, as the Coker decision only imposed a ban on executions for the rape of an adult woman. In 2008, the Kennedy v. Louisiana decision barred the death penalty for child rape. The result of these two decisions means that the death penalty in the United States is largely restricted to cases where the defendant took the life of another human being. The current federal kidnapping statute, however, may be exempt because the death penalty applies if the victim dies in the perpetrator's custody, not necessarily by his hand, thus stipulating a resulting death, which was the wording of the objection. In addition, the Federal government retains the death penalty for non-murder offenses that are considered crimes against the state, including treason, espionage, and crimes under military jurisdiction. |
Four states in the modern era, Nebraska in 2008, New York and Kansas in 2004, and Massachusetts in 1984, had their statutes ruled unconstitutional by state courts. The death rows of New York and Massachusetts were disestablished, and attempts to restore the death penalty were unsuccessful. Kansas successfully appealed State v. Kleypas, the Kansas Supreme Court decision that declared the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional, to the United States Supreme Court. Nebraska's death penalty statute was rendered ineffective on February 8, 2008 when the required method, electrocution, was ruled unconstitutional by the Nebraska Supreme Court. In 2009, Nebraska enacted a bill that changed its method of execution to lethal injection. |
In the 2010s, American jurisdictions have experienced a shortage of lethal injection drugs, due to anti-death penalty advocacy and low production volume. Hospira, the only U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, stopped making the drug in 2011. The European Union has outlawed the export of any product that could be used in an execution; this has prevented executioners from using EU-manufactured anesthetics like propofol which are needed for general medical purposes. Another alternative, pentobarbital, is also only manufactured in the European Union, which has caused the Danish producer to restrict distribution to U.S. government customers. |
As noted in the introduction to this article, the American public has maintained its position of support for capital punishment for murder. However, when given a choice between the death penalty and life imprisonment without parole, support has traditionally been significantly lower than polling which has only mentioned the death penalty as a punishment. In 2010, for instance, one poll showed 49 percent favoring the death penalty and 46 percent favoring life imprisonment while in another 61% said they preferred another punishment to the death penalty. The highest level of support for the death penalty recorded overall was 80 percent in 1994 (16 percent opposed), and the lowest recorded was 42 percent in 1966 (47 percent opposed). On the question of the death penalty vs. life without parole, the strongest preference for the death penalty was 61 percent in 1997 (29 percent favoring life), and the lowest preference for the death penalty was 47 percent in 2006 (48 percent favoring life). |
Other capital crimes include: the use of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death, espionage, terrorism, certain violations of the Geneva Conventions that result in the death of one or more persons, and treason at the federal level; aggravated rape in Louisiana, Florida, and Oklahoma; extortionate kidnapping in Oklahoma; aggravated kidnapping in Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky and South Carolina; aircraft hijacking in Alabama and Mississippi; assault by an escaping capital felon in Colorado; armed robbery in Georgia; drug trafficking resulting in a person's death in Florida; train wrecking which leads to a person's death, and perjury which leads to a person's death in California, Colorado, Idaho and Nebraska. |
In a five-to-four decision, the Supreme Court struck down the impositions of the death penalty in each of the consolidated cases as unconstitutional. The five justices in the majority did not produce a common opinion or rationale for their decision, however, and agreed only on a short statement announcing the result. The narrowest opinions, those of Byron White and Potter Stewart, expressed generalized concerns about the inconsistent application of the death penalty across a variety of cases but did not exclude the possibility of a constitutional death penalty law. Stewart and William O. Douglas worried explicitly about racial discrimination in enforcement of the death penalty. Thurgood Marshall and William J. Brennan, Jr. expressed the opinion that the death penalty was proscribed absolutely by the Eighth Amendment as "cruel and unusual" punishment. |
In total, 156 prisoners have been either acquitted, or received pardons or commutations on the basis of possible innocence, between 1973 to 2015. Death penalty opponents often argue that this statistic shows how perilously close states have come to undertaking wrongful executions; proponents point out that the statistic refers only to those exonerated in law, and that the truly innocent may be a smaller number. Statistics likely understate the actual problem of wrongful convictions because once an execution has occurred there is often insufficient motivation and finance to keep a case open, and it becomes unlikely at that point that the miscarriage of justice will ever be exposed. |
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