How To Improve The Death Penalty

The death penalty has had and will always have the danger of judicial errors. As the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center Richard Dieter has emphasized, “every time we have an execution, there is a risk of executing an innocent person. The risk may be small, but it’s unacceptable” (Death to the Death Penalty). According to the Death Penalty Information Center, among all 7,818 people who were sentenced to death since 1977, 1412 people have been executed and 155 people have been proved innocent. Therefore, for every nine people executed, we have found one person is innocent.

The death penalty, although an ultimate punishment in America, is a very unfair and unjust punishment. If a person has the right to rape, torture, kidnap and/or murder someone else and infringe on another’s freedom; then they should be justly punished however death is not the answer. It should no longer stay as an integrated part of our country’s judicial punishment system. However, we should raise the sentences for these serious crimes, compared to what is currently occurring in today's judicial system.

In the last several years, too many people in the United States have been wrongfully sentenced with the death penalty. Several accused have their sentence overturned or they have been totally exonerated. There are at least 8 people who were executed by United States and later proven innocent (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). Over a 20 year period, 68% of all death sentences were reversed (http://karisable.com). A noteworthy example is of Jerry Banks who was convicted and sentenced with the death penalty for two counts of murder in 1975. Five years later, in 1980, Banks' conviction was overturned on the basis of newly discovered evidence which was allegedly known to the state at the time of trial. Another example was the case of Lawyer Johnson who was sentenced to death in 1971 by an all white jury for the murder of a white victim. Later in 1982, Johnson’s conviction was overturned and Johnson exonerated when a previously silent eyewitness identified the state’s chief witness as the real murderer. (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) Human error is inevitable, particularly

The U.S. Department of Justice is responsible for enforcing federal laws and administrating justice systems in the United States. However, the U.S. Department of Justice has a criminal justice system that is not fair for everyone in the country, specifically for those who are mentally ill, or poor. Over the past couple of years in the United States, there have been many innocent people wrongfully convicted and put on death row due to the corruption of the government. The main factor that has been identify as the cause of wrongful convictions is eyewitness misidentification. The Bedau and Radelet’s study demostrates that there are around 350 wrongful convictions in capital cases. Many abolitionists have arisen against capital punishments, since the exponential increase of exonerations based on DNA or non-DNA evidence. Their goal is to improve the current methods performed by our criminal justice system. The U.S. Department of Justice has acknowledged that its current criminal justice system is not being very effective in punishing the guilty. Since there have been many cases of wrongful convictions, many people are starting to question what has been the improvements that the U.S. Department of Justice has make in order to prevent false imprisonment and death penalty of innocent people. The Department of Justice has tried to decrease the number of inmates who were wrongly put on death row by improving prosecutorial accountability, by researching past criminal cases, and by

Among those sentenced to capital punishment, though, the rate of conviction is far higher than for any other category of criminal conviction. Less than one-tenth of 1% of convictions in our country are death sentences, yet they account for a shockingly high number of exonerations. Approximately 12% of known exonerations of innocent defendants from 1989 through early 2012 were of those on death row. One main reason for this high exoneration rate among capital cases is that far more resources and attention are devoted to death penalty cases, both before and after conviction, than to other criminal prosecutions. Almost all capital convictions are decided by a jury trial, and in the small number of capital cases where defendants plead guilty they

The death penalty, which can also be referred as capital punishment, has been around for centuries and can even be traced back to the eighteenth century B.C. There is still many complications regarding the death penalty. Some religious beliefs interfere with it and this is why the death penalty is a big issue. The death penalty was first used in America by colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, when they killed Captain George Kendall for being a spy. Ever since then, the death penalty has continued to cause conflict in the judicial system. There are many types of executions used around the world, some can be described as harsh. Many countries have used the death penalty but now some countries are against it. Everyone has a different way of viewing something, the death penalty included.

The death penalty has been around for a while. The first death penalty laws date back to the eighteenth century with the Code of Hammurabi. In the Code of Hammurabi, there were up to twenty five different crimes people could have been executed for. The Hittite Code, The Roman Law, and the Draconian Code of Athens all included

The death penalty has been promoted for thousands of years, for countless crimes committed by humans. The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. The death penalty was also

The death penalty can be traced all the way back to the 18th Century B.C. in Babylon to the Hammurabi Codes (“Introduction to the Death Penalty,” 2014). The Hammurabi codes had 25 different crimes that were

Some of the first death penalty laws can be traced back to the Eighteenth Century from the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon which stated 25 laws that if broken constituted the death penalty. The death penalty in the United States has been around since Jamestown in 1608 when the first victim was Captain George Kendall. In the early colonies many times laws for the death penalty would change depending on which colony a person was in. For example Massachusetts Bay Colony held their first execution in 1630, although Capital Laws of New England had not gone into effect at that time. The 1960’s were the time when the constitutional backing for the death penalty was beginning to be scrutinized and many people who thought the Fifth, Eighth, and

The first death sentence that has been historically recorded was as far back as 16th century BC. This occurred in Egypt, the wrongdoer was accused of magic and he was then ordered to take his own life. In present day the death penalty has changed drastically. The death penalty has undergone many changes since then. In medieval times the methods used to kill people were inhumane and often times cruel. In modern times the methods to kill people are much more humane. The death penalty has been used less and less often and even outlawed in some states. The death penalty should be used more often and for more crimes. If the death penalty was used more often there would be a deterrence for future crimes, it is more cost effective, and it would

Many Americans believe the death penalty should be allowed in order to deter crime and bring justice. This belief often stems from the violent world they are shown every day in the news. Understandably they hear and see these violent crimes and think that extreme punishments must be given for extreme crimes. Despite this, 37% of Americans oppose the death penalty (Gallop). These people often argue that not only does capital punishment fail to solve the growing crime problem in the U.S., but that innocent people can be executed in the pursuit of justice. This is certainly true; not even supporters of the death penalty would deny that point. After all, no matter how great we think our justice system is, there are flaws in it just like in every other criminal justice system. The flawed nature of our justice system brings about a very important question, though: what is justice? While it is sometimes difficult to give a simple and comprehensive definition of justice, saying it is fair and reasonable behavior is a good and short definition. Since our justice system will continue to be flawed and humans are sometimes unreasonable and unfair, we cannot possibly have justice all the time; an innocent person will end up being punished at some point. Since this is the case, justice must be whatever the most beneficial option available is. Needless to say, if the death penalty is allowed it must be because it is the most productive option since justice must be productive if it is

In a study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, at least 4.1% of people on death row are wrongly convicted. While these may seem like just statistics to you and me, these numbers are someone's parents, someone’s child, this convict is a human being. This is exactly why we need death penalty reform. The death penalty has been established for many years. The most infamous example being the “Code of Hammurabi” which was established in the early eighteenth century.  Over the years, a multitude of American citizens have fervently expressed opposition for the death penalty. This led to the abolition of the death penalty in nineteen states, the most recent being just last year in 2016. As many other states move to abolish the death penalty, we must realize why the death penalty needs to be reformed. The death penalty overall is way too expensive, ineffective in deterring crime, and is

The earliest historical record of the death penalty otherwise known as capital punishment goes back as far as the eighteenth century B.C., when the code of King Hammurabi of Babylon listed 25 crimes which were punishable by death. Since then, the uses of the death penalty have prevailed throughout the ages in laws and justice systems of different civilizations. For instance, the Draconian Code of Athens punishes all crimes with the death penalty. During those times, the death penalty involved suffering a gruesome death such as being burnt alive, impaling, crucifixion and stoning (Death Penalty Information Center, 2011).