Abolishment

Capital punishment has been a controversial issue that still exists in America today. Capital punishment is a law passed by the government to punish any individual that has been convicted of committed a heinous crime. The death penalty has been a method used throughout history as punishment for criminals. The punishment also known as the death penalty is a scheduled execution, which would be done with lethal injection. The reason why this punishment is chosen is because when crimes are committed that shock the conscience, the immediate emotional reaction is to retaliate with severe punishment (Schnurbush 2016). The death penalty is debated when it is brought up, opinions vary from one group of people to another, one side says the execution is murder, and the other saying that it is justice being done. Each side presents valid arguments to why people should be for it or against it; people’s opinions are formed by personal beliefs.

The death penalty is something many people face each day . There is approximately 1,188 people that were executed in the U.S from 1977 through 2009 . There are many ways on how to execute someone, but primarily we use the lethal injection. The way people are trailed and put on the death penalty, is because of the involvement with first degree of murder, or other crimes. Proponents say that the death penalty is an important tool for preserving law and order. They also argue a term “an eye for an eye” which means that it helps the families grieving, and ensure that they don’t release back to the public for future tragedy. The people against the death penalty say that it is wrong to take a human life, and has no effect on crime. Many of the death row inmates prefer death over life in prison. They say that many death row inmates have been volunteering for their executions. Over 75 inmates have volunteered for their death sentence. This is called a state-assisted suicide. Many inmates said that they would rather gamble on being executed than having life parole. Many inmates say that they spend over a decade awaiting execution. Some prisoners have been in death row for 20 years. They usually are isolated from other prisoners and spend as much as 23 hours alone in their cells. The two punishments they receive other than the death penalty is the living conditions they live in prison. They are usually in a state where they would be executed and,

Debate over capital punishment is nothing new, but it reaches a whole new level when the accused is mentally ill. The question then becomes… was the perpetrator aware of his heinous actions by knowing right from wrong at the time of the crime or was the mental illness controlling his actions? While being sympathetic to the grief and heart break of the victim’s loved ones, I believe that execution for the mentally ill should not be allowed, because often their illness makes them incapable of knowing right and wrong of their actions. Many of those with mental illnesses often go undiagnosed and untreated, either by choice or by financial circumstances, because of the stigma and general lack of understanding associated with this type of diagnosis in our society.

In his memoir Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson recounts the stories of several clients whose mental illness was ignored during their trial. Some had intellectual disabilities, others were dealing with the aftermath of severe trauma, but each one was changed in some way. Whether their reasoning had been altered or they simply did not understand what was happening, any crime they committed was closely tied to their mental state. Logically, a major detail like the defendant’s thought process and motivation behind the crime would have been discussed, but this was not the case. Any evidence of their illness was forgotten about or outright ignored by both the prosecution and the defense. When considering each crime with their mental illness in mind, sentencing the defendant to death row is needlessly cruel. Their avoidance of the topic shows a complete failure to understand how important it can be to an individual’s decision-making abilities.

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

Discrimination undermines the purpose of capital punishment, for inherent bias in jurors causes some individuals to receive harsher sentencing than others. This phenomenon is most widespread in regards to race, since defendants of a minority are more likely to receive a more severe sentencing. Mental incapacity and mental illness are also discriminated against. This prejudice is prevalent in cases where the defendant is mentally ill or borderline intellectually

The death penalty is one of the most controversial issues on American soil. Blacks are more likely to face the death penalty than whites in the commission of identical crimes(CNN, 2014). The history of capital punishment dates back to the days before Christ. The Old Testament adage 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' has survived throughout the ages despite the New Testament's rendition of 'thou shall not kill'. Today's American victims endure a more demure of style of cruel and unusual punishment; death by lethal injection has replaced the barbaric traditions of the past.

In fact, the death penalty is considered immoral for it goes against the Constitution and ethnic code. The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution states that the use of “cruel and unusual punishment” is considered unconstitutional. However, majority of the capital punishments are filled with discrimination and injustice. The fact that the majority of prisoners who are sentenced with the death penalty are African Americans, reflect the cons of our society. Aside from racial discrimination, socio-economic discrimination also contribute to the flaws within our justice system. One of the top reasons why innocents are being executed or accused, allowing the guilty to get away with their crimes is that criminals who are exceptionally

This article concerns a Texas man named Scott Panetti who committed murder by shooting his wife’s parents. Scott Panetti was diagnosed with schizophrenia about 14 years prior to the shootings, and was set to receive a lethal injection; however, the execution was stop do to “the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledges the legal complexity of putting a mentally ill inmate to death.” The court explains that they had to sort out legal issues that are involved with mental instability.

While the topic can be overwhelming and complex, it is important to study the racist institution of the death penalty because execution is the ultimate expression of which individuals are valued by our society and which are considered dispensable. What the US expresses through its executions carries some racist undertones when we look at the races of the persons being executed, but it takes on a clearly racial direction when we consider the race of the original murder victim. For example, "the most comprehensive study of the death penalty found that killers of whites were eleven times more likely to be condemned to death than killers of African- Americans."3 On the flip side, "only 31 of the over 18,000 executions in this country's history involved a white person being punished for killing a Black person."4 In capital punishment, we find the modernday counterpart to lynching. Of course, lynching often meant sporadic acts of individual racism. Selective killing today is an official, bureaucratized act of the state and therefore an official statement of what our government stands for. And what the government stands for is the most complete disempowerment possible - death - for a large number of Black individuals.

Being sent to Death Row is the highest prosecution a criminal could be sentenced to and the process when determining of someone deserves a death sentence is a very bias decision. Since 1977 when capital punishment was restored there has been about 20,600 homicides and only about .7 death sentences for every 100 homicides has been given in the Cook county. The decision to impose a death sentence is not only based on the crime done but also the race of the victim. Attorneys at a state level has a less formal guide when giving death sentences. It is commonly seen how race plays a major role in the justice system. As apart of attorney protocol of determining if the death sentence is given it is seen black males will be given a higher sentence versus a white male even if the crimes where similar. In this article “Disparities on Death Row” published in Grumman points out the unjustness in the justice system. Through ethos, pathos, and logos Cornelia Grumman effectively persuades her audience to spread the issues of capital punishment assignment.

Forty-Five years ago, Arthur Goldberg and Alan Dershowitz described death penalty as "unusual" under the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, saying, "Most commentators describe the imposition of the death penalty as not only haphazard and capricious, but also discriminatory. "' Noting that capital punishment impacts "disadvantaged minorities,"' Goldberg and Dershowitz delivered a prescient message:

PHILADELPHIA – The death penalty has been controversial issue in the United States since the 1976 Supreme Court case that legalized it. Since the death penalty was ruled constitutional, the debate on whether race affects the courts decision has been in major debate. In 1998, the Death Penalty Information Center published The Death Penalty in Black and White which examined the death penalty sentences for 667 murder convictions between 1983 and 1993 in Philadelphia courts. The findings of the study present that there could be a relationship between the race of the defendant, race of their victim, and in the death penalty sentence.

In order to limit the number of crimes, keeping innocent people from getting executed, and save the taxpayers millions of dollars, we need to eliminate the death penalty in all states for good. Capital punishment has occurred in the U.S. since colonial times. Since then, more than 13,000 people have been lawfully executed. There are 31 states that still allow the death penalty, and they must change. These states need to eliminate it on the grounds that it transmits a dangerous risk of punishing the innocent, it is wrong and cruel, and is an ineffective prevention of crime versus the other option of life in prison without parole.

Welcome to America, the land of the free, of the prosperous, of the opulent. America the Beautiful, one of the only places in the world where all citizens regardless of race, background, or social class are constitutionally guaranteed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—that is unless you're on death row. In modern day America we are still faced with the antiquated ritual of capital punishment, a practice that interferes directly with the law of the land. The same forms of punishment used during the middle ages are still in effect today, the same ideas that should have been abolished had the U.S. government revised it's penology. Capital punishment is cruel as well as unusual and inadequate for our advanced society. The United