A widely known form of retribution is the death penalty. The Death Penalty puts you on death row if you committed a crime such as; treason, terrorism, federal murder, large-scale drug trafficking. After you are put on death row, it may take years before you are executed, some even die from natural causes or suicide before their execution. Execution can be done in many forms such as; Lethal Injection (typically a combination of the three drugs sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride for immediate death) , Electrocution (Commonly known method is the electric chair which only six states do any more), Gas Chamber (Lethal gas which yet again only six states do any more), Firing Squad (group of soldiers designated to shoot down …show more content…
The common factor we have is that we live only one life and then we no longer exist. The Death Penalty is putting so many innocent people at risk. Death is irrevocable and permanent, unlike the laws or evidence that can change in the future. Statistics show that since 1973, one hundred and fifty six people have been freed from Death Row because they have been proven innocent. If the new evidence has not been released those one hundred and fifty six people would have been executed and gone forever. Not to mention out of those people, eighty one exonerations have been African American, which leads me to my next point. Racism has always been an issue from even before slavery. Slavery was abolished almost one hundred and fifty one years ago and yet racism is still present to this day. The race of the defendant and the race of the victim are major factors in who gets to live or die. According to a report from the General Accounting Office (1990), eighty-two percent of the death penalty studies reviewed showed that those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death compared to someone who murdered a black person. We as a country can not keep executing people based on who they killed or what they look
The death penalty is procedure conducted by the government by which a person is put to death as a punishment for a crime. The crimes that can sometimes carry the death sentence in places like the US are war crimes, treason, murder, crimes against humanity, espionage and genocide. 103 countries as of today have fully removed the death penalty except for special crimes e.g. War crimes. Although this is a step in the right direction (for most people) 56 countries are known to perform the death penalty.
The longbow has changed England’s history forever. Dating back to the 1300s the English used the longbow. In 1340 at the Battle of Sluys the English attacked packed French ships using the longbow and the French suffered tremendously. In 1346 after the Battle of Crecy the French had lost 11 princes, 1,200 knights, and 30,000 common soldiers, when the English only had lost 100 men. In the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, the longbow was used and killed about 2,000 mounted French knights of the elite French army.
Racism is a problem that has existed for centuries and has caused loads of problems throughout time. Even though segregation and slavery both ended decades ago, racism has escalated to such a severe level that whites are harming and even killing innocent African Americans in any way possible. Racism has turned people into murderers and the homicide rates will only keep going up if something doesn’t change soon. Not only does racism literally kill people, it also kills African Americans’ opportunities at having a better life just because they’re not white as well. Books like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry and documentaries like American Denial display a variety of examples of death caused by
There are five ways to execute a person. The five are: lethal gas, lethal injection, electrocution, hanging, and firing squad. The most commonly used are lethal injection and electrocution. Lethal injection is when the people inject a shot into both of your arms. It takes about three minutes until the acid kills you. Firing squad is when a group of people has guns and the shoot at the murderers
Racism is often an excuse people use to say how unfair the death penalty is against African Americans. This excuse has been proven false in a few studies. More white murderers have been put to death since 1976 then black murderers, showing that the death penalty is not unjust to African Americans and minorities (Fisanick 26).In contrast, almost half of the criminals, on death row are black. Even though that is the case, blacks commit more murders than whites making it proportional (deathpenaltycurriculum.org). Criminals should not be given a lighter or harsher sentence due to their race, but due to the crimes that they committed and the severity of them.
There are many problems facing our criminal justice system today. Some of the more important ones are overcrowded jails, the increasing murder rate, and keeping tax payers content. In light of these problems, I think the death penalty is our best and most reasonable solution because it is a highly effective deterrent to murder. And, tax payers would be pleased to know that their hard-earned tax dollars are not being wasted on supporting incorrigible criminals who are menaces to society. In addition, they would not be forced to fund the development of new penitentiaries in order to make room for the growing number of inmates in our already overcrowded jails. Moreover, the death penalty would
There are many different types of unlawful racism in the criminal justice system. It goes from back in the early part of our great nation’s birth to the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. to Ferguson, Missouri. The path that racism takes is from old time’s point of view. The way to clear up racism in our criminal justice system is simple and easy. Americans need to fully understand the idea of equality. Second, police need to stop doing racial profiling. Finally, the criminal justice system needs to be kinder to different races. Americans need to abolish the idea that racism needs to be alive. The criminal
When you say "there are some crimes that need to have the solution of death," this may be what you feel personally, but it is not necessarily something that can or should be enforced by the law. The United States Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel and unusual punishment is to some extent defined by social mores, which change over time. The United States is the only major industrialized democracy that has the death penalty. Furthermore, the death penalty is not uniformly enforced across the land. Someone who is wealthy and has access to better legal representation is more likely to be found 'not guilty.' The fact that individuals have been exonerated, thanks to DNA evidence as noted in Gross (2005) highlights the imperfect nature of our criminal justice system, and prohibiting the death penalty at least gives the system some chance to ensure that justice is eventually done later on.
The American government operates in the fashion of an indirect democracy. Citizens live under a social contract whereby individuals agree to forfeit certain rights for the good of the whole. Punishments for crimes against the state are carried out via due process, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The use of capital punishment is decided by the state, which is legal in thirty-seven states. It is a moral imperative to protect the states' rights to decide their own position on the use of capital punishment.
The death penalty has become a racial problem as well. The US has struggled with prosecutors having and using their biases
When a person is charged with Capital punishment we automatically think they are a dangerous criminal, but what if someone was charge simply because of their race. Well, there have been many researches done along with statistical evidence to confirm that this may be in fact the case for African-Americans. The United States Constitution was established so that every Citizen in America is guaranteed their basic rights which include; guarantee a fair process in all hearings and equal treatment under the law. African-Americans have struggled throughout our history with unfair treatment and equality. For example, the decades of slavery and the struggle of passing the equal voting rights bill in 1965. This may have passed us, but many African-Americans are still dealing with racial discrimination and this time it’s with the Criminal Justice system in particular, Capital Punishment. There have been intensive studies and evidence coming up showing how race can in fact play a major role when determining if you get a sentence to Capital Punishment or not, even if you are in fact innocent. We are to believe with our Constitution, bill of rights, and laws that every citizen no matter what race you are will be treated equally fair and justice will hopefully be served, but throughout our history up until now we are finding out that ultimately what will decide the outcome of a citizens fair and equal trial is the color of their skin.
There are many reasons to both support and oppose the death penalty. Many people can feel very strongly about whether or not they approve of this method of punishment. I feel that the death penalty is wrong, and I believe that there is much support to back this up. I believe that the death penalty is wrong because it is not an effective deterrent, racially and economically bias, unreliable, expensive, and morally wrong of society.
Racism has always been an issue in our society. Throughout history, minorities have been misrepresented in the justice system, especially in cases where the outcome is death. In early American History, blacks were hanged for breaking any informal laws. Back then, killings occurred without any type of dues process. In the 1960s the National Association for the Advancement of African Americans (NAACP) believed that African Americans received the death penalty more frequently than members of other groups. “According to data from Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), 55% of death row inmates are black or Hispanic”
In his paper, “The Minimal Invasion Argument Against the Death Penalty”, Hugo Adam Bedau argues against the death penalty. Bedau’s purpose is to convince people to favor the lifetime imprisonment over the death penalty with an argument that had been previously used by other authors called “The minimal Invasion Argument”, which he considers to be “the best argument against the death penalty”(Bedau, 4). In this paper I will describe Bedau’s argument and show how he has some weaknesses addressing the concept of the minimal invasion argument by ignoring what in my opinion is the main reason why the death penalty has not been abolished; this reason being our incapacity as humans to “define” our environment. When
In basic terms, the death penalty according to Stearman "is when the government takes a person's life as a punishment for wrongdoing" (6). As the author further points out, the death penalty is regarded the most severe form of punishment that can be dispensed to a citizen by any given government. Most jurisdictions permit the death penalty for cases involving espionage, treason, as well as murder. Some of the methods that have been utilized over time to put to death those convicted of crimes punishable by death include but they are not limited to lethal injection, electrocution, death before a firing squad, hanging, utilization of poisonous gas, etc. Those in support of the death penalty are convinced that the same is critical when it comes to the maintenance of law and order. Indeed, one of the most prominent arguments that have been presented in support of the death penalty is that the same acts as an important deterrent. However, those opposed to the death penalty maintain that amongst other things, the death