Well, I hate to get on to a bit of a trivial subject (certainly not life and death, but you might think it was in the South due to the love of college football), but the death penalty also refers to the NCAA penalty against schools with major rules violations in which the school not only loses scholarships, but is actually prevented from competing in a sport for at least one full season. This happened to Southern Methodist University back in 1987, and is commonly referred to as the death penalty, as it effectively kills your program, and will likely set any college program back at least 15 years. Note that SMU was a major power before the penalty, and they are just now getting decent teams (though they still are not the powerhouse they once were).