Death Sentencing Process

The Court found that Georgia’s system for applying the death penalty was “judicious” and “careful.” Gregg had gone through two trials – one to determine guilt and one for sentencing. Further, specific jury findings of “aggravating circumstances” were necessary to impose the death penalty. There was therefore no Eighth Amendment violation, and the death penalty was constitutional. The Court ruled, “The imposition of the death penalty for the crime of murder has a long history of acceptance in the United States (n.d.,Web).

The moral and ethical debate on the sentencing and enforcement of capital punishment has long baffled the citizens and governing powers of the United States. Throughout time, the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, and the vast majority beliefs of Americans, have been in a constant state of perplexity. Before the 1960s, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Many argue that capital punishment is an absolute necessity, in order to deter crime, and to ‘make things right’ following a heinous crime of murder. Despite the belief that capital punishment may seem to be the only tangible, permanent solution to ending future capital offenses, the United States should remove this cruel and unnecessary form of punishment from our current judicial systems.

The death penalty continues to a topic that is largely debated in the United States, but it was never more unpopular than in the 1970s when it actually came to a halt. A moratorium is a temporary prohibition brought about when “the Supreme Court issued its opinion on Furman v. Georgia which struck down the death penalty nationally.” The moratorium lasted from 1972-1976 and was brought back during the time when Richard Nixon initiated the war on crime and condemned the decision on the Furman, “These efforts to reinstate the death penalty succeeded when, only four years after Furman, opened the door again on executions in the U.S. with its ruling on Gregg v. Georgia.” After the Gregg decision, the Supreme Court gave each state the choice to implement

More than two centuries ago, the death penalty was commonplace in the United States, but today it is becoming increasingly rare. In the article “Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?”, Diann Rust-Tierney argues that it should be abolished, and Joshua Marquis argues that it should not be abolished. Although the death penalty is prone to error and discrimination, the death penalty should not be abolished because several studies show that the death penalty has a clear deterrent effect, and we need capital punishment for those certain cases in which a killer is beyond redemption.

At least as early as the year of 1735, since colonial times, capital punishment was employed by Georgia with recorded executions. Nine hundred and fifty executions were carried out by Georgia, before the year of 1976. Upholding in particular the death sentence imposed on Gregg, the approval of the death penalty's use in the United States was reaffirmed by the United States' Supreme Court by Gregg v. Georgia (1976). In order to comply with the 8th amendment band on unusual and cruel punishments, main features were set forth by the Supreme Court that must be employed by the capital sentencing procedures.

Gregg v. Georgia: Excerpts from the Majority Opinion used concrete facts to support their position on the death penalty. Using documented laws to create their position. The reversal of the 1972 ruling in 1976 to reinstate the death penalty. Making note that cruel and usual punishment was first documented in the 1689 bill of rights and the death penalty still qualifies (Boss, 2012. pp 262).

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.

Capital Punishment is used in the judicial system unfairly and as a weapon against minorities. This is mostly due in part to racism in the courts by the lawyers and judges. Race continues to plague the application of the death penalty in the United States. On the state

An examination of death penalty sentencing procedures within the American criminal justice system suggests that the legal and moral authority to execute condemned criminals granted to a government has been tested time and time again, only to be reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. While the 1960's saw a series of failed attempts to ban the practice, launched by death penalty abolitionist groups firm in their belief that murder can never be justified, it was not until 1972 that a majority of Supreme Court justices ruled to prohibit state-mandated executions. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a national non-profit organization dedicated to providing a forum for informed discussion regarding capital punishment, "the issue of arbitrariness of the death penalty was brought before the Supreme Court in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia, Jackson v. Georgia, and Branch v. Texas (known collectively as the landmark case Furman v. Georgia (408 U.S. 238))" (DPIC, 2013). While the court previously ruled in Crampton v. Ohio and McGautha v. California that the application of capital punishment did not result in arbitrary and capricious sentencing, the 1972 Furman case challenged the Eight Amendment, whereas the McGautha case cited the Fourteenth Amendment's due process provision.

Aristotle once said “the generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.” Capital punishment has been intertwined in United States history for centuries with a number of crimes that could lead to the death penalty if convicted, many of them are some form of murder. Since 1977, three thousand and ninety-five defendants have been on death row and of that, only one thousand thirty eight defendants have actually been executed. But the perilous question is whether or not the defendants were sentenced based on solely the facts and nature of the crime or crimes, or were there other contributing factors that influenced the severity of the verdict. There are several social controversies that surround the people who are sent to death row, predominately bias and discrimination issues which are based on ethnicity, gender, and mental health.

In recent discussions of the death penalty, a controversial issue has been whether or not to abolish the death penalty. On the one hand, some argue that the death penalty should remain illegal. From this perspective, the death penalty rids the United States of criminals who have committed horrible crimes. On the other hand, however, others argue that the death penalty should be illegal in all fifty states. From this perspective, the death penalty could also send an innocent person to their death. According to President Obama race is a factor, at least in his opinion. He stated, “In the application of the death penalty in this country, we have seen significant problems – racial bias, uneven application of the death penalty, situations

In this paper, the authors examine how the death penalty argument has changed in the last 25 years in the United States. They examine six specific issues: deterrence, incapacitation, caprice and bias, cost innocence and retribution; and how public opinion has change regarding these issues. They argue that social science research is changing the way Americans view the death penalty and suggest that Americans are moving toward an eventual abolition of the death penalty.

While the death penalty has been ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States, many American citizens believe that racial discrimination is a major factor in deciding who will be legally punished by death. Because a large portion of the population of the United States fears that the justice system in America is not color blind, studies have been conducted in order to investigate the fairness in the administration of the death penalty.

Thirty-one states in the U.S. currently use the capital punishment, though the largest numbers of death row inmates and executions occur in just a handful of those jurisdictions. Although California has the largest death row with 690 inmates, this state does not put to people very orderly – for example, no one has been execute in the last three years. Texas, in contrast, while also having a very large death row inmates executes more people each year than any other states in around the United States. The number of people who put to death in Texas alone institutes 48% of all executions that have occurred since 1976. The federal government and the military both also use the death penalty for federal and military offense. For the period of his time in office from 2001 - 2005 Unites States Attorney General John Ashcroft instructed his assistants to seek the death penalty in more federal cases than ever before.

Throughout history shifts have occurred that have made the way we look at the death penalty change. The one that has changed the way that we looked at it the most happened during the early and late 1970s, in that time the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the death penalty was unconstitutional and decided to revise it. However, another change occurred in the late 70s and early 80s where the court decided that they would no longer precede over death penalty cases and established a process where they moved away from adjusting the death penalty. 12 years after the court’s decision a young man by the name of Daryl Atkins was put on trial and was found guilty and given the death penalty, however they ended up reversing that ruling because the country