The Pros And Cons Of Capital Punishment

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, eighteen states have abolished the death penalty since its implementation (Facts About the Death Penalty). But what are the reasons behind doing so? Historically, public policy concerning capital punishment has shifted dramatically, from required capital punishment to jury nullification to a rise in the abolition of the practice. Public opinion has shifted alongside policy, with more and more Americans disapproving of the death penalty and the morality behind it, citing it as an inhumane and hypocritical approach to justice and punishment. I am with the the more progressive Americans that do not believe in administering the death penalty under any circumstances. Rather, I support life imprisonment or the insanity defense for capital offenses whenever appropriate. Capital punishment is ineffective because it lowers the state down to the level of the defendant, frequently discriminates against racial minorities and those of lower socioeconomic status, and it has been abolished in nearly every other modern democratic country.

Death penalty is also known as capital punishment or execution. Societies from all over the world have used this sentence at one point in history, in order to avenge criminals. Most common reasons for being sentenced to death were war crimes, war treason, murder and espionage. Back then, the capital punishment was almost always accompanied by torture, and executions were public. The most used execution method was by hanging. If an inmate chooses the electric chair it takes anywhere between 2 min and 15 minutes. The criminal receives a jolt between 500 and 2000 volts for every 30 seconds, attending doctor waits for body to cool after each bolt and check if the heart is still breathing. While in some societies, violent death penalties are still being employed – like shooting, hanging, electric chair and gas chamber – in most countries, these have been replaced with a painless method – the lethal injection. When the person is put to death for the death penalty they use a lethal injection execution, in most cases. Sodium thipal makes the person go deeply unconscious but unable to feel himself being paralyzed from the “pancuronium bromide”. On death row an inmate waited an average of 15 years between sentencing and execution but a quarter of inmates die on death row from natural cases. The time has come to make punishment fit the crime, too oppose lethal injection, but not because these untried new drugs might obituary cause pain, but cause confusion, lethal injection conflates

Two hours. That’s how long it took Joseph Wood, an inmate at Florence State Prison in Arizona, to die to a lethal injection. Joseph Wood is not the first to die to a botched injection, which is thought to be a “humane” process of executing America’s worst criminal offenders. Many other people across the states are victims to the harsh and provenly inhumane laws of capital punishment. Cases like these prove why capital punishment is wrong, and should be removed from the laws of every state. Capital punishment is an inhumane punishment which is dealt from a broken and sometimes blatantly racist system, and is an economic burden on the states that administer it.

Capital Punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the gravest punishment in the U.S. criminal justice system (Van den Haag, E., & Olin, J. M., 1986); It is the legal killing of a person guilty of committing heinous and malum in se acts against the public, such as the intentional killing of an individual, intentionally committing an act of violence knowing that it may be deadly to an individual, inflicting injury to a victim resulting in death, etc. (18 U.S. Code § 3591). According to the U.S. Code,

Capital punishment, also known to as the death penalty, has a long history in human society. It has been applied to the United State for decades. Since 1976, there are 1,446 executions have been taken place in the United State. Under the United State constitution law, states reserve the right to apply their own criminal laws, which means there are states have abolished capital punishment while others have enforced the death penalty. In states that retain capital punishment, the majority of execution method is lethal injection. But there are few states still authorize a range of other methods such as gas inhalation, firing squad, or electrocution. Clearly, capital punishment is lawfully and is accepted by many legislators. However, this idea of a legalized murder is illogical, immoral and inhumane. First, even though many people support the death penalty, but a very few of them actually witness an execution or understand the feeling of everyone who involves in the execution. An execution usually is hidden from citizens due to its reality of cruel and inhumane. A designated prisoner was brought into a room with a fulfillment of deathly equipment and people who were going to execute him, but he had never met before. These executors are usually nonmedical-trainer volunteers but will ultimately and shortly be involved in a complicated medical situation. As a matter of fact, our society has spent a lot of efforts making sure that criminals are in as least pain as possible. Thus,

Capital punishment is a government practice where guilty defendants are put to death by the state as a way of punishment for their crime. These crimes are typically related to treason, espionage and violent murder, and many find difficulty in finding a punishment to fit these extreme crimes. The debate regarding the morality and overall functionality of the punishment has been long debated. Some believe it is immoral and against the eighth amendment which ruled cruel and unusual punishment illegal. Others believe it is a fitting punishment for heinous crime. However, the death penalty is legal in thirty-one states and has seen many complications. Some inmates on death row have been found innocent based on new evidence, as well as discovered how cost ineffective the treatment is. Harsh prison life is also argued to be worse than facing death for a crime.

Most Americans are in favor of ending somebody’s life. Mark Berman’s article in the Washington Post claims that the majority of Americans support capital punishment. The Death Penalty Information Center, an organization that records national polls and studies on capital punishment, put the number of supporters at sixty-two percent. However, only about a quarter of those supporters believe that there are enough safeguards in the system to prevent the execution of an innocent life. Americans’ faiths in the legal system have historically been the basis of arguments for and against the death penalty.

Capital Punishment has been up for debate as early as the 1700s. Human rights activists, religious groups, and economists have been consistent stakeholders in protest again capital punishment. Human rights activists believe that no judge or jury should be able to decide whether someone lives or dies. Religious groups consider all life to be sacred. And economists have proven that the death penalty is very costly on taxpayers.

Capital punishment, or the death penalty, has been a part of the American Justice System since the begging, but for years it raised much controversy over its social issues, questioning its validity and fairness. The death penalty is the sentence of execution given to someone convicted of a capital crime such as murder or treason. Many civilizations and early societies used the death penalty before in history. Common explanations to be sentenced include war crimes, treason, murder, and espionage. Formerly, capital punishment was accompanied by torture and performed publically. It was often believed to be unprejudiced because it is retribution towards criminals who committed heinous acts. In contrast, it is currently a controversial debate whether or not the death penalty is socially acceptable as many see it is inhumane. The United States currently has five forms of execution include: hanging, beheading, chair electrocution, lethal injection, lethal gas, and firing squad (Gray). Each of them is cruel in their own way. Punishing a person with death is outdated, barbarous, and many nations evolved so they reprimanded this penalty years ago. Government sanctioned capital punishment is wrong and it should be abolished because it could potentially kill the innocent, denies people of rehabilitation, denies a citizen’s right to live, and overall does not benefit society.

The death penalty is a very controversial topic. Although there is a lot of evidence supporting both sides, over half of Americans are for capital punishment in some shape or form, but what causes someone to be sentenced to death? According to the article, “Against the American System of Capital Punishment” by Jack Greenberg, the worst crime is “a putative killer of one’s parent or child” (Greenberg). What makes this so much worse than any other crime? And, of the few executions, how many of these people are getting executed for the worst crime? Some people say the death penalty should continue and there should be more executions, but personally, I think it should be banned in all states. Through the history of my brother in law to what the law actually states the death penalty should no longer be in place.

Capital punishment, that is putting a convicted criminal to death for his or her crimes, has probably been utilized since man first began organizing into communities. Various cultures have utilized numerous means by which to accomplish this task. Early crucifixions, stonings, beheadings, and drawing and quartering have been denounced by most modern countries as ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ although many third world countries still practice stoning and beheading. The crimes for which one might be put to death have varied over the years, but for most of the modern world, only the most awful rapes and murders are considered punishable by death. Religions vary as to their official stance on capital punishment, although Christians’ views are often dependent on whether their church subscribes to the Old Testament or the New Testament. There is considerable controversy over whether a state has the right and/or responsibility to put an individual to death, and there are many legitimate concerns on both sides of the controversy. Although some crimes, such as the Manson killings, are too horrible to even consider the possible rehabilitation of the criminal, there remains a question in some people’s minds as to the proper punishment.

What in the world would be the punishment for the most brutal killers beside the death penalty? Historically, people have been murdering people mostly because of either how popular they are or how wealthy they are. Such as In In Cold Blood, the author stated that the two killers killed the entire family in one night intentionally just because of hatred or thievery. The judges of the court must give Dick and Perry Smith the death penalty because the most brutal killers should be eliminated in order to assure that one day these killers cannot come out of prison and commit another crime.

“Thou shalt not kill” the bible says, yet since 1976 including 2017 1463 people have been executed in the United States. Since capital punishment was first put on the books in 18th century B.C. capital punishment has often been surrounded by controversy ranging from the moral and religious concerns like above to economic issues. However despite all this debate and increasing disapproval, the death penalty is still legal in 31 states and used by the federal government today. The death penalty even made it through a moratorium by the supreme court from 1968 through 1977 to determine the death penalty's constitutionality. This persistence of capital punishments use throughout the United States despite its controversy would not be possible without one thing however, supporters and politicians belief that executions deter murder. This notion seems like a common sense conclusion, people do not want to die so they would not kill if it put them at risk of being killed. Thus, the hypothesis of this research is that the death penalty is a successful deterrent to murder. For the purpose of this research the death penalty will mean “... the lawful infliction of death as a punishment … used in the United States … carried out by one of five lawful means: electrocution, hanging, lethal injection, gas chamber, and firing squad” ( Gale Encyclopedia of American Law). Another other important term to define is murder which for this paper will mean, “ The unlawful killing of another human being

America is one of the few western nations still using the death penalty to this day as a method of punishment for capital crime. Over 2,000 prisoners are on death row with their fates already determined (Andre, Velazquez) What makes the death penalty so complex, and that is noticed but sometimes disregarded, is the way prisoners are executed, the fact that some of these prisoners may be innocent and the racial disparities that can determine the reason for sentencing people to death. As prisoners wait to be executed, civil rights activists aim to get rid of the penalty by arguing against it for being unjust and immoral. The arguments for and against the penalty are compelling: capital punishment is regarded as unconstitutional as it goes against the 8th amendment of our nation’s constitution, it saves people by getting rid of a murderer or person who is just as bad as a killer, and it is in the best interest of the people for these convicts to not walk the streets we live in. Both groups, left and right, have a say in what they think about the issue, but so far no change has been done to fix it.

The first recorded execution in colonial America was that of Capitan George Kendall in 1608. Since then, there have been over 16,000 executions in the United States. Over the years, execution have evolved from hanging, to electric chair, to firing squads, to the now preferred method of lethal injection. Still, there is a lot of controversy surrounding the subject. The idea of killing someone because of a crime that they committed is cruel to many, but others are heavily in favor for the punishment. In fact, many people do not understand that the death penalty is constitutional and effective form of punishment for criminals by eliminating their chance to ever commit the crime again, bringing peace to the victims and their families and exterminating the toxic people from the world.