Lethal Injection Is A Violation Of Human Rights

The death penalty is the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime (law.cornell.edu, 2015). The first Congress of the United States authorized the federal death penalty on June 25, 1790 (deathpenalty.org, 2011). The death penalty can also be referred to as capital punishment, however capital punishment also includes a sentence to life in prison, as opposed to strictly executions. A convict can be sentenced to death by various methods including lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad, and hanging. After the death penalty was established, many debates have arisen arguing that these methods violate several of the United States’ Amendments. Select cases have been accused of violating the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. It is important to note that the judiciary goes through a series of processes prior to deciding a sentence for a capital crime. Many factors influencing the verdict include proportional analysis, individualized sentencing, method of execution, and classes of people not eligible of the death penalty. This paper will discuss brief descriptions of the methods used for executions, economical issues, the Supreme Court’s opinion regarding the death penalty, as well as important factors that make up the proportional analysis, individual sentencing process, method used, and determining classes of people who are not eligible for the death penalty.

Why is the death penalty used as a means of punishment for crime? Is this just a way to solve the nations growing problem of overcrowded prisons, or is justice really being served? Why do some view the taking of a life morally correct? These questions are discussed and debated upon in every state and national legislature throughout the country. Advantages and disadvantages for the death penalty exist, and many members of the United States, and individual State governments, have differing opinions. Yet it seems that the stronger arguments, and evidence such as cost effectiveness, should lead the common citizen to the opposition of Capital Punishment.

Worded perfectly by The Scientific American, a magazine analyzing controversial issues in America said, “About two thirds of the states use a combination of barbituric, paralytic and toxic agents for executions, despite a lack of scientific evidence supporting their effectiveness.” The procedure is still subject to FDA approval, the agency has avoided questions ruling on the mixtures efficacy in “delivering a merciful death” (citation). This brings to light a harsh topic: is lethal injection truly cruel and unusual? Human Rights Watch is an international non government aided organization dedicated to protecting and establishing the appearance of human rights around the world. The report the HRW released, “So Long as They Die: Lethal Injection in the United States” (citation) The report highlighted a fact not a lot of people consider, “Prisoners in the United States are executed by means that the American Veterinary Medical Association regards as too cruel to use on cats and dogs.” A lot of the civilians who simply only read about death

The political issue that I choose is the death penalty. There are just as many reasons why the death penalty needs to be abolished as there are reasons why we need it. It is a complex issue and it is almost impossible to point to any single argument as the most important. Worldwide 140 nations have now stopped using capital punishment. America 's continued use of the death penalty only profiles us as a violent and vengeful nation and keeps us in the same category as Iran, North Korea and China who still practice and advocate capital punishment.

“And despite scientific efforts to implement capital punishment in a "humane" fashion, time and again executions have resulted in degrading spectacles, including the botched lethal injection in April 2014 that took more than 40 minutes to kill Oklahoma inmate Clayton Derrell Lockett and prompted Glossip v. Gross” (Heyns and Mendez). Capital punishment is an inhumane and outdated way for punishing criminals. The use of capital punishment is hundreds of years old in America. It is used as a punishment for criminals who have committed a violent crime in which they physically harm others. The point of the death penalty is to show that these kinds of crimes are not tolerated, and to deter criminals from committing these kinds of crimes. Unfortunately

Although lethal injections and juvenile criminals seem unrelated topics, they both deal with problems in the criminal justice system. The titles are “Should Juvenile Criminals Be Sentenced Like Adults?” by Abigail Pesta. Pesta is an award-winning journalist and an author; she was also a graduate from the University of Notre Dame. “Lethal Injection for Execution: Chemical Asphyxiation?” by Teresa A. Zimmerman, Jonathan Sheldon, David A. Lubarsky, Francisco Lopez-Munoz, Linda Waterman, Richard Weisman, and Leonidas G. Koniaris. These writers graduated from the University of Miami. However, all were medical majors, but in different areas. In Pesta’s article she tells the story about a young man named Sean, who spent time behind bars in Riker’s Island, NY. In this article the authors gave specific information about the effects of lethal injections and whether if they act as intended or not. The audience for both is the public, justice system, and people in the medical field. The purpose of the first article is to inform the audience on someone’s perspective behind bars and how it affected them. Also, this article was thesis driven. Then the second article’s purpose is to show how unreliable lethal injections. The format of this article is IMRAD. These two articles show us how the justice system is flawed.

In this article, it talks how the government carries out executions, not merely to its choice of particular execution methods. and execution method such as lethal injection that can be humane in theory and can be carried out by means of flawed or haphazard procedures that create a foreseeable danger of inflicting severe pain in actual practice. Also, it said in the article that over time in the absence of adequate safeguards, such a method of execution will inevitably involve the infliction of gratuitous pain in some executions. The Inflicting gratuitous pain on a subset of condemned prisoners is no more tolerable than inflicting gratuitous pain on all condemned prisoners.

The use of capital punishment in the U.S. is a growing concern for most American citizens. According to statistics, seventy percent of Americans are in support of the death penalty, while only thirty percent are against it. These statistics show that few people are against capital punishment (“Fact” 1). With the use of the death penalty growing the controversy is becoming more heated. With only twelve states left not enforcing it the resistance is becoming futile (“Fact” 4). Many debates have been made and even clauses have been invoked, such as, the “Cruel and Unusual Clause” that was invoked by the Supreme Court in 1962 (Meltsner 179). The use of death as a punishment has been viewed as “cruel

The United States of America, one of the most profound and progressive countries in the world, is also the only country in the Americas, to continued to use the death penalty as a punishment and execute its own people to prove that killing others is bad. Death Penalty continues to be a hot topic in the states with many people for and many others against the use of death as a form of punishment for criminals who commit first degree or aggravated murder. There are many factors that can place one at a disadvantage and increase the possibility of being sentenced to death penalty such as race, socioeconomic status, and geographical factors, among other potential reasons for the crimes that have been committed. The further capital punishment is investigated

Lethal injection is now almost the main method of execution in the US, with all but one of the 39 executions carried out during 2013 being by this method. Deadly injection changes from state to state.Normally, the prisoner is strapped to a gurney or a fixed execution table, rather than an operating room table by leather or webbing straps over the body and legs. All the chemicals used in the USA are standard medical drugs. Sodium thiopental is an ultra short acting barbiturate which was used widely as an anaesthetic and causes unconsciousness very quickly if injected into a vein."Capital punishment is supposed to serve the purposes of social defense and retribution. The argument that it deters or incapacitates dangerous offenders was not conclusively supported, and analysis of data herein failed to provide solid evidence for the death penalty as a mechanism of social defense."(Sorensen & Pilgrim,2006 , p.159)

Legal Affairs Reporter, Cristian Farias, in his article, “The Supreme Court Let a Man Die. He Was Executed With The Wrong Drug.”, and columnist, Manny Fernandez, in his column, “Delays as Death-Penalty Sates Scramble for Execution Drugs” describes the conflicting issues involving the use of certain drugs for the death-penalty. Farias’ purpose is to demonstrate the disastrous decisions the Supreme Court and Oklahoma made. However, Fernandez’s purpose is to inform the readers about how the execution drugs is affecting states all over the country. Both authors were informative and gave intriguing facts, but Farias connected with the audience more and Fernandez created a serious tone to convey to the readers how it is impacting people’s lives.

Many states have been executing fewer people in the past decade and some states like Maryland and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment altogether. Many people shake and are repulsed by the live executions they see on television from the Middle East. From all the Western Countries, the United States is the only country that still upholds the death penalty. Even though the death penalty is legal in most states, just a few of them do still carry out executions. Reason for this could be that Americans are somehow okay with the idea of the states using the lethal injection as the best way to put a sick human being to endless sleep. Botched executions have also been exposed as a large problem seemingly unknown to the American public. The drugs that have been used for the lethal injections also seem to be experimental, untested and are sometimes proving to be ineffective at killing prisoners without some form of excruciating pain. Just because the prison is using pharmaceutical drugs does not necessarily mean that this is a painless process. Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, says sceptism of lethal injection is “not driven by sympathy for the defendants, who committed terrible crimes,” but rather, “(the public) doesn’t want to hear gruesome facts,” such as prisoners writhing in agony while strapped to a gurney as their loved one’s watch. When the procedure is botched, it is anything but

Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a combination of poisons into a person with a fatal dose of drugs, for the fundamental express purpose of causing immediate death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in an ample sense to euthanasia and suicide. It kills the person by first putting the person to sleep, and then stopping the breathing and heart, in that exact order. Physicians should participate in execution, under all circumstances. Thirty-six states in the United States of America allow the death penalty, out of those thirty-six, twenty-eight states require a doctor to be present at

The death penalty has always been a topic of controversy since it was first introduced. The death penalty has been abolished in a majority of countries across the world, but still remains active in one third of the world. The death penalty has a lot of ethical and moral matters tied to it. In a world of individuality there is a divide on the people, for the death sentence and those against it. Many view it as a barbaric and cruel punishment that violates the constitutional right of a human being. Whilst other view it as a just punishment for serious crimes. This paper will look at the history of the death penalty in Australia in body one. Then in body two, lead on to a recent case known as the ‘Bali nine’ which was

In society there many things that are debated among the people based on their beliefs, morals, and values. For this paper chose the death penalty because it is one of the highly debated topics in not only today’s society but also in the past. The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, it used as a procedure of retaliation against those who commit violent crimes such as murder and other capital crimes. There are many forms of this punishment, for instance, the electric chair, lethal injections, and the firing squad. There are many feelings and arguments in relation to capital punishment. Some people believe that the death penalty is moral because they deserve it and it provides protection to the society. However, in this paper I will argue that capital punishment is totally immoral because it is not fair, is it unnecessary, and unethical.