Capital Punishment : The Death Penalty Essay

“The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?” In 1607 the British left the United Kingdom to the new world now known as the United States. When the British went to the United States they brought over the death penalty with them. When the British came to the United States there had been some spies that followed them from the European countries. They ended up finding a guy named Kendall who was a spy from spain. The first execution occurred in Virginia where they executed Kendall. After the first execution, it became a regular thing in the new world. People were executed for stealing grapes, trading with the Indians and killing chickens.

The Death penalty has been a controversial subject since the beginning of time. People are concerned about the morality of the death penalty thus making it a debatable subject. Because of this, James Freeman, columnist for USA Today, decided to write an editorial on the subject of “Does America need the death penalty?” While being a writer for USA Today, one would think that he would effectively use the appeals of rhetoric (ethos, pathos, and logos), but in fact he does not and concludes with a poorly writing argument.

According to the death penalty center (2018), “When European settlers came to the new world, they brought the practice of capital punishment. The first recorded execution in the new colonies was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608.” What is capital punishment? You may ask… well as per Roger Hood, writer of the Encyclopedia Britannica is “also called the death penalty, [and] is the execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense,” (2017). In other words, capital punishment is the killing of a criminal who has already been tried based on the evidence presented during conviction.

In Britain, hanging was the most prominent method of execution. Over 200 different crimes were punishable by death. However, in the eighteenth century 100 of the crimes were eliminated from the death penalty. Britain was the primary influence on America’s use of the death penalty. The death penalty has been used in America for several different crimes, such as murder and treason.

The death penalty has been dated back to the “Ancient Law of China” but it’s mostly known during the time of “King Hammurabi where the death penalty was given for 25 different crimes”. The first actual recorded death penalty usage was set during the “16th century where one was accused of magic, and ordered to take his own life”. In America, the first person known to be put to death was “Captain George Kendall” for allegedly “being a spy for Spain.” What seems to make America’s first interpretation of the death penalty is that it was even used for “minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens, and trading with Indians”. The death penalty is a way for those to punish people for their

The Death Penalty Discussion In today’s world terrible crimes are being committed daily. Many people believe that these criminals deserve one fate; death. Death penalty is the maximum sentence used in punishing people who kill another human being and is a very controversial method of punishment. Capital punishment is a legal infliction of death penalty and since ancient times it has bee used to punish a large variety of offences.

When english settlers came to America they brought with them capital punishment, better known as the death penalty. The first recorded use of capital punishment in the colonies was in 1608. The death penalty was used for cases such as murder, treason, and oddly enough, stealing grapes. The death penalty often varied from

The death penalty was started in the era of king Hammurabi of Babylon. The code of Hammurabi codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. The death penalty has changed from the 18th century to present day. After Britain had their death penalty, by hanging, later rulers became more violent with the means to how they execute someone, with little to no good reason. Britain influenced America’s use of the death penalty. When new settlers came to America they brought with them the practice of capital punishment. In 1612 Thomas Dale started the Moral and Martial Laws, which provided the death penalty to be used for minor crimes like traffic offenses, possession of small amounts of illegal drugs with no intent in selling. The law varied from colony to colony. 1982 the United States became the first country to use lethal injection.

The death penalty, also known as capital punishment began in the 1600s. This form of punishment was brought and proposed by colonial governments. Every single colony at the time had approved hanging, which is also known as “the gallows”. This form of punishment was made mandatory for crimes that were against the state, person, and property.

Almost all nations in the world either have the death sentence or have had it at one time. It was used in most cases to punish those who broke the laws or standards that were expected of them. Since the death penalty wastes tax money, is inhumane, and is largely unnecessary it should be abolished in every state across the United States. The use of the death penalty puts the United States in the same category as countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia which are two of the world’s worst human rights violators (Friedman 34). Lauri Friedman quotes, “Executions simply inject more violence into an already hostile American society.”

When the first colonists came to the United States, they brought the British penal system with them. Laws concerning the death penalty varied from colony to colony. In the Tenth Century A.D., hanging became the main method of execution in Britain. Death sentences were carried out by crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement. The first death penalty laws go back as far as the eighteenth century in Babylon.

The United States learned got their use of the death penalty as a form of punishment from their parent country the United Kingdom (Marcus). The first record of capital punishment in America was in the colony of Jamestown in 1608. George Kendall accused John Ratcliff of violent acts towards Indian girls. Ratcliff responded by accusing Kendall of being a Spanish spy and had him executed by firing squad (Adcock). With the countries, new freedom and the issuance of the constitution along with the Bill of Rights, the founding fathers left out anything address capital punishment. This left it up to the individual states to decide their own stances. This resulted in America’s use of capital punishment to vary depending on the state. The supreme court didn’t address Capital Punishment until the 1970’s with the court cases McGautha v. California and Furman v. Georgia. The McGautha v. California case ruled that capital punishment is a fair, just punishment upholding the philosophy that it is okay under the constitution. This ruling was overturned just one year later with the Furman v. Georgia case. In Furman v.

In 1997, the state of Florida botched Pedro Medina's execution. When the switch was flipped on the 50-year-old electric chair, nicknamed "Old Sparky," the mask covering Medina's face caught on fire. Flames up to a foot long shot of his face for 6-10 seconds. A thick, black smoke filled the room, and the prison guards closed the curtain, hiding the rest of the job from the shocked witnesses. Bob Butterworth, then Florida's attorney general, said that Medina's agonizing death would be a deterrent to crime. People who want to commit murder, he said, better not do so in Florida because "we may have a problem with our electric chair."

The death penalty has been around for a long time. The first recorded death sentence in the new colonies was that of Captain George

The Death Penalty has been used in the United States since the very foundation of our nation; the first recorded case was the execution of Captain George Kendall in 1608 in the Jamestown colony as it was believed Kendall was a spy (DPIC). Americans have seen executions throughout history and are somewhat exposed to the idea but the 21st century is a very different place than the 17th century. This century is a time of equality and rights for people of all