The Texas death penalty is ranked number one nationally, which should not come as a surprise to any native Texans. (Holle, Fellow) Texas even has a prison museum, complete with a capital punishment exhibit, which spotlights an electric chair used to execute 361 prisoners from 1924-1964. Capital Punishment is still legal in 35 states. Japan is the only other Industrial democracy that still has the death penalty. (CNN)
The PROs and CONs of capital punishment both have some merit, no matter how controversial. CONs of capital punishment: Once someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death, it is close to impossible to be given a chance at a retrial. So on the off chance that a prisoner has been wrongly convicted; he/she will most likely die an innocent person. Another CON for capital punishment has to do with the subject of mental illness. Since 2006, Texas has made an effort to educate people on the subject of executing people with severe and documented mental illnesses. It has been suggested by the American Bar Association as well as Philological associations, to prohibit the death penalty for people with these severe mental illnesses. It is theorized that these people are being sent to death row because there is simply not enough funding to help these people in mental health facilities. Texas is number “47 nationally in terms of per capita spending on mental healthcare.” (Holle, Fellow) Are these
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Hammurabi’s code and eye for an eye, though seemingly barbaric, has a sense of truth. If given the choice. Another merit for the legality of death row is the idea of deterrence. Statistics show that the death penalty deters murder. (Haag) People are more afraid of being executed for committing a horrendous crime than they are of spending the rest of their life in
Their a many cons to the death penalty. One is that during lethal injection does not always work and by that I mean that many things could go wrong. A few things are that they always can’t find a vein. This happens because heroin and drug users, their veins go deep because of the drug abuse. Also not always the drugs injected work the the inmate could stay awake and see and feel everything. This is very painful if you didn’t know. According to the New Republic a inmate named Angel Diaz was sentenced to the capital punishment by lethal injection. The execution went completely wrong. The IV was inserted incorrectly and that cost the vein to burst. Diaz skin started to turn black and parts of his skin turned pink. Diaz started to ooze a pinkish liquid. Diaz suffered a painful death and that went against the 8th amendment cruel and unusual punishment. Also in cases there was hate or the want for revenge so there was bias and inmates were given an unfair trial. Also racism has been a factor because in a
There are laws and decisions of United States government and higher orders that present controversy to the people of America. In the state of Texas the application of the death penalty is difficult to interpret, especially for the mentally ill, because there is no written law or bill that explains the execution implication in complete detail. The death penalty is a capital punishment of death for those who have committed such high crime. This penalty goes for everyone who does such act no matter who you are, how rich how poor, or where you stand in society. For the longest time, even with the mindset and understanding that those who commit crime to a certain level can receive the execution punishment, the concern and debate whether the mentally
Putting people to death for breaking the law is a punishment that has been in existence for thousands of years of human history and has been enforced in all corners of the
The life it took thirty-seven years for Lester Bower to build, was taken from him in slightly under four hours when a jury with no murder weapon, without fingerprints, witnesses placing him at the scene, or a confession, found him guilty and sentenced him to death. During the next thirty-one years of waiting he was separated from his wife and two daughters; he spent about 23 hours a day in the 5 by 9-foot cell that held him as he awaited his execution. In 1994, he reported that his life on death row was a lonely one saying, “You have people around you all the time, but you have very few friends. There is too much dying on the row, so you don't build really true bonds.” Finally on June 3, 2015, Bower died for the crime that he maintained he
Texas had always had a long standing history of being traditional and conservative; their strong ties to tradition and pride in history has caused them to remain steadfast in some of their practices regardless of the world around them. Texas is amongst the few states in the U.S. that still actively participates in capital punishment. In 1982, the state became the first jurisdiction in the to carry out an execution by lethal injection, since then Texas has executed more than a third of the national total.
Since the death penalty was reauthorized in 1976, 1,362 people have been executed, almost exclusively by the states, with most occurring after 1990. Texas has accounted for over one-third of modern executions and over four times as many as Virginia, the state with the second-highest number. The Walls Unit prison in downtown Huntsville, Texas is the nations busiest execution chamber.
“…Over 600 people were falsely convicted and 35 faced death for crimes that they did not commit…”(Johnson). The death penalty is an ineffective and expensive way of dealing justice to the American people. It is easier and cheaper to send someone to prison for life than to have them face the death penalty and be executed. Capital punishment is an unnecessary punishment because criminals are already managed at prisons.
Thousands of people will attack the death penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man or woman who might accidentally get an execution sentence. However, all of these people are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims who die every year by the hands of heartless murderers. There are more murderers out there than people who are wrongly convicted, and that is what we must remember.
Texas Capital Punishment is not as reasonable as one might assume. It is not reasonable since there have been many innocent individuals who have been executed. One might wonder how an innocent individual is given Capital Punishment, and through out the Trial he or she is found guilty and hurl for execution. Many facing Capital Punishment are underprivileged individuals who cannot afford a private lawyer, in which he or she relies on the State of Texas to appoint an attorney for them (Byrd & Price, 2008). Much of the time, the appointed lawyers are overloaded with cases, don’t have time to review the case before trial, and don’t have trial experience required for a capital punishment case (Byrd & Price, 2008). According to the Death penalty
In the world we as people live in violence. Violence has gotten so out of control that it has affected everyone. The one thing about violence is that it also leads to crimes. And crimes leads to some people being imprisoned, while others are put on death row. But if crimes are crimes, what makes them minor or major? Who decides if they are minor or major? Nowadays minor and major crimes are being pushed together. For example, someone gets shot and the shooter gets 5 years in prison. But if someone is raped it cannot be proven and the victim is left suicidal while the rapist goes about their day. Both are major crimes but one has a sentence and the other one does not. With this happening in the world it makes me wonder if we as the people
Being one of the seventy- four countries that carry out the capital punishment, the United States is currently fourth in executions per year. Beyond this,
On the other hand, some people view capital punishment as a wrongful unethical act. Just like the five pros of capital punishment, I will now explain five reasons behind the cons of capital punishment. First, it violations human rights. This is the main backbone for the cons against capital punishment. Everyone has the right to live a life, whether or they are a criminal or not. We as a government or society shouldn’t play GOD, with someone’s life. Second, it’s racial, ethics and social bias. Approximately 48% of the criminal in federal death row are African American, it is advocated that capital punishment is used racially ("5 Pros and 5 Cons of Capital Punishment - Listovative," 2017). The minorities of our society, is a victim of this punishment.
Capital punishment should only be pushed on criminals such as child rapists, mass murders, and serial killers. If we did not have capital punishment these offenders could escape from prison and repeat crimes, possibly worse than the first time. If there was no Capital punishment and the death penalty was not an option people would have no inhibition to crime, and no one would never think twice before committing an offense. Most people agree with capital punishment being just when federal, state, and local officials implement the correct constitutional protections, such as due process and equal protection of the law
Since the mid 1900’s, capital punishment has brought many individuals into many diverse view points throughout the years. Capital punishment is a way of punishing a convict by killing him or her because of the crime he or she committed. Capital punishment will always have its pros and cons. There are opponents who absolutely disagree with capital punishment. And then there are advocates who support the idea. In the advocates view point, capital punishment is a way to minimize the threat in the world today. In the opponent’s point of view, opponents disagree with capital punishment, because of the high expenses it brings to the states. Also, opponents argue that capital punishment
The cons of the death penalty are that it is more expensive than a regular life sentence, it takes up a lot of time and space, unjustly condemns people to die and is not a deterrent to violent crime.