8th Amendment Death Penalty

The Eight Amendment to the U.S. Constitution “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted”, proposed on 9/25/1789 and approved on 12/15/1791. The cruel and unusual punishment confines the harshness of penalties that state and federal governments may inflict upon ones who have been condemned of a criminal offense. The excessive fines phrase restricts the amount that state and federal governments may possibly fine an individual for a specific offense. The excessive bail phrase limits legal judgment in setting bail for the discharge of persons indicted of an illegal action during the time following their capture but prior to their trial.

There are laws and decisions of United States government and higher orders that present controversy to the people of America. In the state of Texas the application of the death penalty is difficult to interpret, especially for the mentally ill, because there is no written law or bill that explains the execution implication in complete detail. The death penalty is a capital punishment of death for those who have committed such high crime. This penalty goes for everyone who does such act no matter who you are, how rich how poor, or where you stand in society. For the longest time, even with the mindset and understanding that those who commit crime to a certain level can receive the execution punishment, the concern and debate whether the mentally

The suffering, pain, or humiliation, of a person is considered cruel and unusual punishments and is not acceptable by the Eighth Amendment which states the prohibiting the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. With this amendment you have the rights of; protection from physical brutality, rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, your rights to decent conditions in prison, also your rights to medical care.

The supreme court in Atkins observed that the execution of mentally retarded criminals in the states that permitted it was not common & these acts were unfair.

We reserve the death penalty in the United States for the most heinous murders and the most

Throughout history, societies have witnessed deviance and criminality among its citizens, and criminologists have spent centuries attempting to understand what causes deviance, why do people act how they act and do what they do. No matter how criminals come to be, the criminal justice systems have consequences in place in order to maintain peace in the communities. One of these consequences is capital punishment, the authorized killing of a person as punishment for a crime, and in most states in the United States of America, lethal injection is the common practice used for ending the life of someone. In one state particularly, Arizona, many citizens are calling for a reexamination of the death penalty due to its effect on the economy and crime rate, and how it is arbitrarily applied within the criminal justice system.

In this circumstance the decision of the death penalty was not executed in similar means, since the conflict was deliberated as a violation of the 8th amendment. The examination of cruel and unusual punishment (Boss, 2012), remained significant due to difficulty of the court in deciding the characteristics of the amendment to validate punishments of elaborated offenses; numerous individuals in the U.S. still support the death penalty irrespectively of how it is banned in other countries. The attitude of this argument changes vividly after the opening argument, as genuine to dogmatic. The situation starts via vindicating the resources of capital punishment moreover, the lawbreaker is mindful of the magnitude and stipulation of murder, hence,

Several states have turned to the sedative midazolam after not being able to obtain sodium thiopental and pentobarbital as the initial drug used to place inmates in an unconscious state” (Hudson 1). Since sodium thiopental and pentobarbital are no longer allowed in use, states have turned to midazolam. Midazolam ultimately does the same job, but not as effectively. The lack of sodium thiopental and pentobarbital leaves midazolam as the alternative, even though it is not as powerful to create and unconscious like- state (Hudson 2). The unconscious like- state is a necessity to perform the death penalty without going against the Eighth Amendment, due to inflicting pain. Clayton Lockett is an example of someone who was sentenced to death, given midazolam, and suffered during execution. In his procedure, he was only administered 100 milligrams of midazolam, which was not enough (Hudson 2). “... Lockett awoke during the execution process and, by several accounts, suffered a very painful death” (Hudson 2). Lockett’s experience clearly goes against the Eighth Amendment, because “cruel and unusual

“About 80% of Teas executions have had one problem or another. In the final analysis, it looks disgusting”, says Fred Leuchter, inventor of the Lethal Injection Machine. The death penalty is nothing but a violent crime, an act of petty revenge, and most importantly, a violation of the eighth amendment. It is a cruel process, and causes unnecessary pain for the relatives of the executionees. On April 12, 1983, a one Mr. Evans was sentenced to be put to death by the electric chair. But, the technicians erred, and the total length of the procedure expanded to fourteen minutes. Many problems such as the one of Mr.Evans, happen while the execution is taking place. Additionally, every year, many innocent

“On Jan 7, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the lethal three-Drug cocktail used in most U.S executions. In a perfect world, perhaps, the government wouldn’t wait 30 years to determine whether an execution method makes sense” Von Drehle, D (2008). So many Americans are being sentenced to death, and we stand back and wonder how this can be happening. It happens because we have criminals and so we will continue to have crime, and instead of trying to figure out the who, what, where and why we would rather put them to death. The reasons to abolish the death penalty go on and on, what about the

The death penalty is arguably one of the most controversial issues of our time. Currently, only eighteen states and Washington D.C. have abolished the death penalty. However, the question remains: what does research say for or against the death penalty? In 2009, a study was done that found the statistic that 88% of criminologists believed that capital punishment is not a deterrent to murder (Radelet and Lacock, 2009). The majority of research also points to the conclusion that the journey from arrest, to trial, to execution is extremely expensive, even more so than that of a life sentence. Finally, who considers the people tasked with performing the execution? What about their mental health? Through examining the death penalty’s facts, deterrence,

Two Supreme Court cases proved the unconstitutionality of the death penalty. The first case was Atkins v. Virginia which took place in 2002. Daryl Atkins was convicted of abduction, armed robbery, and capital murder. The defense used a foreseeing psychologist, who testified that Atkins was mentally disabled. In a 6-3 Supreme Court decision ruled that the executions of mentally disabled criminals are “cruel and unusual punishments” and violate the Eighth Amendment (Macvaugh 132). The second case, Roper v. Simmons, barred the execution of juveniles. Christopher Simmons was sentenced to death in 1993 at the age of seventeen. Appeals to state and federal courts lasted till 2002, where each appeal was rejected. After the Supreme Court decision in 2002 that ruled executing mentally disabled violated the Eight and Fourteenth Amendments was cruel and unusual, the Missouri Supreme Court decided to reconsider Simmons’ case. The Missouri court decide 6-3 that the Supreme Court’s 1989 decision in Stanford v. Kentucky, was no longer valid. The case was taken to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 vote that, “Standards of decency have evolved so that executing minors is ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The court pointed to the worldwide opinion that rejected juveniles receiving the death penalty. Both cases show in the recent years the scope of death penalty is slowly

Capital punishment is constitutional as long as the death penalty is pain free, however, there is a huge controversy about whether the use of execution drug is constitutional or unconstitutional in light of the Eighth Amendment. The Eighth Amendment prohibits the federal government from imposing " cruel and unusual" punishment and there are arguments about drug injections as not being effective enough to sedate or anesthetic a person until death.()

The death penalty is an important social issue to discuss because it effects all of us. The death penalty is a punishment used in extreme cases which allows the court system to sentence a convicted felon to death. Since the death penalty applies in some states, people may think they can do wrong to someone and still get away with minimal or no punishment. The death penalty should be in place in all countries and states, because I believe that if there is a large amount of evidence that someone committed a crime, then an eye for an eye applies. If someone was to kill a person they should be sentenced to the death. There may be an exceptions for people who are mentally ill. The article states, “Another goal is to exempt certain classes of prisoners, such as the mentally

In June of 2015, the U.S Supreme Court deemed that the debated drug, midazolam, used experimentally in the three drug combination of an anesthetic, a paralytic, and a third which induces cardiac arrest, was fit for use in lethal injections (de Vogue). Many Americans believe that lethal injection is a justified and humane punishment for those who commit violent acts. The execution of