The Need for Regulations on the Death Penalty Essay

The death penalty is a controversial topic in the United States today and has been for a number of years. The death penalty was overturned and then reinstated in the United States during the 1970's due to questions concerning its fairness. The death penalty began to be reinstated slowly, but the rate of executions has increased during the 1990's. There are a number of arguments for and against the death penalty. Many death penalty supporters feel that the death penalty reduces crime because it deters people from committing murder if they know that they will receive the death penalty if they are caught. Others in favor of the death penalty feel that even if it doesn't deter others from committing crimes, it will eliminate

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.

As far back as one can look into human civilization, justice for a murder victim has always been by taking the life of the killer. In today’s society capital punishment is needed to defend it from further harm, bring justice and/or vengeance to the victims of the loved ones, and encourage psychological deterrence. As of today, there are thirty-two states which offer the only just punishment for a crime without parallel and eighteen states having abolished the death penalty.

In the United States, the use of the death penalty continues to be a controversial issue. Every election year, politicians, wishing to appeal to the moral sentiments of voters, routinely compete with each other as to who will be toughest in extending the death penalty to those persons who have been convicted of first-degree murder. Both proponents and opponents of capital punishment present compelling arguments to support their claims. Often their arguments are made on different interpretations of what is moral in a just society. In this essay, I intend to present major arguments of those who support the death penalty and those who are opposed to state sanctioned executions application . However, I do intend to fairly and accurately

Many criminals take the lives of or hurt many people around them. They are later released after doing time in prisons to go on the streets again where they will do the same things over again. "[W]e reserve the death penalty in the United States for the most heinous murders and the most brutal and conscienceless murderers. To sentence killers like those described above to less than death would fail to do justice because the penalty – presumably a long period in prison – would be grossly disproportionate to the heinousness of the crime. Prosecutors, jurors, and the loved ones of murder victims understand this essential point…” Death penalty does the justice right for seriously violent criminals instead of having them do time in prisons to be released.

There are about 121 innocent people sitting on death row tonight. A study by the National Academy of Sciences reports that conservatively, 4.1 percent of defendants sentenced to death are indeed innocent. Capital punishment is abolished in many parts of the developed world, but is still carried out daily. In this day and age, its existence may seem questionable. After World War II, crime rates increased in the United States, peaking from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Sure enough, thirty-two states, the federal civilian and military legal systems permit the death penalty. Its application is limited by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution to aggravated murders committed

HE STOOD AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE EXECUTION chamber in Huntsville, Texas,18 minutes from death by lethal injection, when official word finally came that the needle wouldn't be needed that day The rumors of a 30day reprieve were true. Ricky McGinn, a 43-year-old mechanic found guilty of raping and killing his 12-yearold stepdaughter, will get his chance to prove his innocence with advanced DNA testing that hadn't been available at the time of his 1994 conviction. The double cheeseburger, french fries and Dr Pepper he requested for dinner last Thursday night won't be his last meal after all.

Once a serial killer, always a serial killer. A poll states that the majority would rather have the murderer killed then put in prison to soon be released and kill again. sixty three percent were for the death penalty, seven percent were unsure, and thirty percent were against. the thirty percent say that if we killed them, we would be just as bad as the criminals themselves. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Aristotle once said “the generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.” Capital punishment has been intertwined in United States history for centuries with a number of crimes that could lead to the death penalty if convicted, many of them are some form of murder. Since 1977, three thousand and ninety-five defendants have been on death row and of that, only one thousand thirty eight defendants have actually been executed. But the perilous question is whether or not the defendants were sentenced based on solely the facts and nature of the crime or crimes, or were there other contributing factors that influenced the severity of the verdict. There are several social controversies that surround the people who are sent to death row, predominately bias and discrimination issues which are based on ethnicity, gender, and mental health.

The Death Penalty Discussion In today’s world terrible crimes are being committed daily. Many people believe that these criminals deserve one fate; death. Death penalty is the maximum sentence used in punishing people who kill another human being and is a very controversial method of punishment. Capital punishment is a legal infliction of death penalty and since ancient times it has bee used to punish a large variety of offences.

17). Most murderers, in Greenburg’s opinion, are ruled by their whims and therefore will not consider the possibility of being put to death for their actions (Greenburg, par. 18). Moreover, Greenburg points out that the majority of killers are not very smart or disturbed whether by their own doing or with the help of drugs or alcohol (par. 18) Using the reality that so few people are actually executed Greenburg creates an interesting case against the death penalty: if virtually no one dies, how can criminals be deterred by such a unlikely consequence? Greenburg realizes we can never know the exact thoughts of a would be killer, but looking at his interpretation of the reality of our legal system, it not hard to understand his prediction of its ineffectiveness. While Greenburg provides practical reasons to combat deterrence, Michael L. Radelet and Traci L. Lacock in the article “Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates?: The Views of Leading Criminologists,” give expert opinions by summarizing the opinions of leading behavioral scientists. This valuable and insightful resource shows how criminologists have recently shifted away from the belief that death is an effective deterrent. Why? Earlier research showed that execution directly paralleled with lowered homicide and removal of criminals from death row resulted in increased homicides. (Radelet & Lacock 494) But later search found these major studies to be skewed and largely unconnected to murder

The irreversibility of the death penalty is especially significant in light of the percentage of innocent people on death row. A study published in 1982 in the

The idea of ending the life of a convict is disputed heavily in the United States and in other countries throughout the world. In fact, many countries and several American states have already

When one thinks about the death penalty, they usually think of capital punishment, which is punishment by death as well as a practice by the government of killing people as punishment for serious crimes. Capital punishment has been used in the United States since 1775 when all thirteen colonies were at the outbreak of the American Revolution. It was not until 1787 that the founding fathers allowed the death penalty when writing the constitution. In 1790 United States Congress established a Federal Death Penalty, which was also called the Crimes Act of 1790, that created six capital offenses, treason, counterfeiting, three variations of piracy or felonies on the high seas, and aiding the escape of a capital prisoner, also in that same year the first person was executed under the United States Federal Death Penalty for committing “murder on the high seas”. The end of the 1700s, brought reform for the death penalty laws, like in 1793 the concept of varying degrees of murder was introduced, which softens the death penalty laws.

An issue that has continually created tension in today's society is whether the death penalty serves as a justified and valid form of punishment. Whenever the word "death penalty" comes up, extremists from both sides start yelling out their arguments. One side says deterrence, the other side says there's a potential of executing an innocent man; one says justice, retribution, and punishment; the other side says execution is murder. Crime is an evident part of society, and everyone is aware that something must be done about it. Most people know the threat of crime to their lives, but the question lies in the methods and action in which it should be dealt with. In several parts of