The Methods Of Capital Punishment

Though it may seem that the debate over the death penalty only most recently surfaced, the dreadful tradition of capital punishment arrived in the United States at the time of the colonists. In the 17th century, most people were hung, beheaded, burned alive, or crushed under stones. All of these were in public, where a large crowd gathered to watch the horrible sight, similar to the tradition in old Europe. Eventually, the 19th century favored hanging as the most common form of execution. This marked the start of a more humane approach accepted as constitutional as executions moved away from the public eye. More developments came in the 1800’s as a movement to abolish capital punishment arose. This effort was stalled for a time during the Civil

This paper will briefly cover the world history of the use of the death penalty as well as its current use in the United States of America. The paper will discuss the statistics of how often the death penalty is utilized as a sentence for capital crimes as well as the time a convicted person spends awaiting the death penalty to be imposed. This paper will utilize research from published sources. This paper will also review current death penalty issues are the occurring in our court systems today.

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.

The legitimacy of the use of capital punishment has been tarnished by its widespread misuse , which has clouded our judgment regarding the justifiability of the death penalty as a punitive measure. However, the problems with capital punishment, such as the “potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness and racial skew" , are not a basis for its abolition, as the world of homicide suffer from these problems more acutely. To tackle this question, one must disregard the currently blemished universal status quo and purely assess the advantages and disadvantages of the death penalty as a punitive measure. Through unprejudiced examination of the death penalty and its consequential impacts, it is evident that it is a punishment that effectively serves its retributive, denunciatory, deterrent, and incapacitative goals.

Furthermore, in the 1830s and 1840s capital punishment was targeted nationwide (Henderson, 9). The movement against the death penalty sought to “halt public executions” (Henderson, 9). Public executions at the time were widely attended and seen as a form of entertainment (Henderson, 9). The most popular form of execution at this time (and still today in some countries) was hanging (Beliveau, 202). Although this type of execution was common when carrying out the death sentence, it was not always the most humane. Beliveau claims that “contrary to what is often believed, in the majority of cases it is not the blocking of air entering the lungs that causes death” (202). In addition, the most common types of hanging were short-drop hanging and long-drop hanging (Beliveau, 203-4). Short-drop hanging was the more common of the two and had similar effects to dying by strangulation whereas long-drop hanging was created with the intent of executing someone in a more humane way (Beliveau, 203-4). Other methods of capital punishment include decapitation, lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, hanging, firing squad (Denver et al).

The justice system is filled with opposition. Those who support the use of Supermax, the death penalty and the execution of those who are mentally retarded and juveniles, and those who oppose the above mentioned. The following essay will discuss all mentioned topics.

The death penalty or capital punishment has been part of our humanity for years and years. Existed since ancient times, according to people a person who has committed an atrocious act, was sentence to death penalty or capital punishment. The death penalty begins back in the 18th century B.C. in the code of king Hammaurabi of Baylon; who was accused of committing 25 crimes. In years past, the punishments where more crucial then today, the execution procedures had no boundaries, forms of killing where endless. Drowning, whacking, “damnatio ad Bestia” which was death cause by a wild animal, dismemberment: dividing the body into quarter-usually with an ax, throwing then off a high place, impalement: one of the most

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.

Over the course of human history the earliest known concept of capital punishment has been around since the 18th Century BCE, where the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon codified the death penalty for twenty five different crimes (Reggio, 2015). From the 18th Century until now there have been many other societies that have used capital punishment for various crimes, such as the Hittite Code, Draconian Code of Athens, and also Roman law. Those different cultures used different methods for execution and followed different rules for people of different race, religion, creed, social status, etc. As history progressed, capital punishment itself has gone through many changes; the ways of execution have evolved from brutal and torturous methods such as burning at the stake, burying alive, bludgeoning to death, impalement,

Criminal justice system has been an important aspect of every society and has proven to be effective in many way over the period of decades. Nevertheless, there are many areas and situations that it has come short in delivery what it is set up for due to human erroneous nature in executing justice. Even though criminal justice systems differs from one country to another, there are also many similarities among them. The most obvious one is that they have a common goal to administer justice, protect human rights, enforce the law and secure the people and their properties. Another area of concern in criminal justice system is the practice of capital punishment in which there is a strong disapproval its practices. In has been observed

Capital punishment, also known as a death penalty, it has been around quite a while, longer than most of us would think. A death penalty used to be the only justice for almost all crime back in the seventh century B.C and it is call Draconian Code of Athens. However, there are so many centuries that practice death penalty. However, it was during the eighteenth century B.C when the king of Hammurabi of Babylon established the first death penalty laws also known as the Code of Hammurabi (an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; meaning the same amount of punishment to the offender as he or she acted on behave

Crime in America is something that has been around for many decades. While a large number of crimes are considered minor, many more result in the serious injury or death of another human being. “When we think about crimes, we … normally focus on inherently wrongful acts that harm or threaten to harm persons or property” (Bibas 22). The death penalty, also called capital punishment, has been used as a means of punishing the most violent of criminals in an attempt to prevent others from committing similar crimes. Over the centuries, the methods used to conduct these executions have evolved and changed due to effectiveness and public opinion.

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.

The way we carry out these executions is by lethal injection, which is much more humane than any ways we have carried it out in historical times (McCuen 27). A prison official had claimed, “The guy will just go to sleep forever. It will be easy-real easy” (49). He says said this when referring to a man who was on death row. By using lethal injection, the United States is ridding itself of criminals, and is carrying it out in the most humane way possible (Kurtz). Professor John McAdams of Marquette University said, “If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murderers, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call” (Marzilli 21).

Death penalty is an ancient punishment since time immemorial. It has been used as a way of resolving blood feds and it is more of a thing of the past. The modern contemporary society must adapt a more human procedure to punish those accused of doing wrong. However, it is important to note that there are a minimum number of offenses that an