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Death Sentencing Process

Decent Essays

In 1976, the United States Supreme Court was given the opportunity to abolish death sentences, but they voted in favor of allowing executions. The years prior to the 1976 vote were marred by inconsistencies on the behalf of these judges, as they changed their minds on the legality of the death penalty three times. Furthermore, the discrepancies in the way minorities are executed versus that of white people is alarming, showing the rampant racism that exists in the judicial system. The racial biases in how death sentences are given, as well the inconsistencies of the Supreme Court during the years leading up to the legalization of executions, should cause the United States to rescind the death penalty. The Supreme Court voted in 1971, in …show more content…

In the case entitled Gregg vs. Georgia; the ruling, in favor of Georgia by a seven-to-two vote states, “acceptance of the death penalty provided certain criteria are met: fundamentally, that it not be applied arbitrarily or capriciously. There must be rational standards that determine when it is imposed and when it is not.” (Nagin). On account of this ruling, the Supreme Court made certain that the death penalty was an acceptable punishment, governed by the United …show more content…

A few of the judges who voted in favor of keeping the death penalty in the seventies have since come out and stated they regret their decisions. Justice Harry Blackmun, who voted in favor of the death penalty in 1976, said this many years later: “The basic question [is], does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants deserve to die? This cannot be answered in the affirmative” (Sullivan). Another judge who voted in favor of death sentences was Justice John Paul Stevens; however, after his retirement, he would call the death penalty, “the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contribution to any discernible social or public purpose” (Sullivan). The third judge, who in 1976 could have swayed the vote in favor of abolishment, is Justice Lewis Powell. He told his biographer, John Jeffries, “I have come to think that capital punishment should be abolished” (Cohen). If these three judges had the information they attained later in life in 1976 the final vote would have turned out five to four in favor of abolishing the death penalty. Moreover, thirty years have passed since these three judges made regrettable voting decisions. Yet nothing has been done by the Supreme Court to revisit this case and see if, with information and statistics in today’s society, a vote in favor of

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