RESPONSE 1:
When you say "there are some crimes that need to have the solution of death," this may be what you feel personally, but it is not necessarily something that can or should be enforced by the law. The United States Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel and unusual punishment is to some extent defined by social mores, which change over time. The United States is the only major industrialized democracy that has the death penalty. Furthermore, the death penalty is not uniformly enforced across the land. Someone who is wealthy and has access to better legal representation is more likely to be found 'not guilty.' The fact that individuals have been exonerated, thanks to DNA evidence as noted in Gross (2005) highlights the imperfect nature of our criminal justice system, and prohibiting the death penalty at least gives the system some chance to ensure that justice is eventually done later on. Of course, when we hear about a child being murdered or another type of horrible crime we instinctively want to put the perpetrator to death. We feel that as a collective, moral consciousness about many crimes, not just crimes that can receive the death penalty, like rape. Even someone who has his or her life savings taken away may feel as if the perpetrator deserves death. Punishments within the justice system cannot be decided solely on emotions. Of course, it is true that the justice system is a work in progress and there are necessary reforms that must be
The idea of capital punishment deterring crime is difficult to determine; some could rationalize that the death penalty should in theory stop potential murders from committing crimes. However, this rationalization has never been concretely proven. The research into capital punishment’s effect on deterrence is immense; however, the majority of research on this issue has differential findings. Although some research suggests conclusively that capital punishment deters crime, others found that it fails to do this. Understanding deterrence, the death penalty, and the results of
In the article "The Case Against the Death Penalty," which shows up in Crime and Criminals: Opposing Viewpoints, Eric Freedman contends that capital punishment does not discourage fierce crime as well as conflicts with decreasing the crime rate. This essay will analyse Freedman 's article from the perspectives of a working man, a needy individual, and a government official.
Many states don’t allow the death penalty anymore and I believe it’s because they think its inhumane and a morally wrong thing to do. I don’t believe all criminals should be sentenced to death, just criminals who will spend the rest of their lives in prison. There is just no reason to pay for a criminal to live their entire lives in jail, for committing a horrible crime, just because it is a morally wrong thing to sentence a person to death. Criminals who murder have already committed an inhumane crime by murdering innocent people. We are doing the humane thing by removing them from our society, because they will and cannot do anything positive for our society anymore.
The death penalty today is a hot button question that many experts cannot agree on. The topic deals with justice, logistics, and human morality which leads to either a person remaining alive or losing their life. It is not an easy choice to make because the death penalty has so much to do with human desires for justice as it does the justice system carrying out just punishments for crimes committed. In almost all of human history, capital punishment has been a punishment that was used to punish individuals who broke laws the society upheld. The United States of America is no different as it still continues to use the death penalty as a punishment in many states across the nation. The United States has contemplated the legality of the death penalty, with multiple court decisions dictating if and what is legal, as discussed in the video produced by CNN (http://www.cnn.com/videos/crime/2014/05/06/orig-jag-death-penalty.cnn/video/playlists/death-penalty/).
The death penalty is a controversial topic that has been brought to the United States Supreme Court many times. According to the Oxford dictionary, the death penalty is the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime . Usually the death penalty is administered for murder, attempted murder, or intent to kill. It started off being administered by hanging, but then evolved to the electric chair and is now administered through lethal injection. From 1940 to 2014, approximately 3,771 people have been legally executed in the United States. Throughout the years, many things have been determined about the death penalty. The first being that it violates human rights. The second is that innocent lives cannot be brought back. And the third is the large possibility of a biased jury. There have been many cases that support these three points which I will address later. So, based on Supreme Court rulings, the death penalty is unconstitutional and should not continue to be legal.
The death penalty does not keep crime from happening. Over the years, the death penalty has been a very major moral issue within today’s society. This particular form of punishment is usually given to people who have been found guilty of capital crime. However, penalizing an individual in this manner is not a solution to the problem. The United States is already in a tremendous amount of debt and dealing with budget shortages, so spending thousands even hundreds of thousands on ending an individual’s life because they were found guilty of a crime is absolutely absurd. The death penalty costs taxpayers way more per year than a prisoner within the general population. It is a cruel punishment against mankind and therefore should be ceased. In conclusion, the death penalty should be discontinued in the United States because it uses up tax
Capital punishment in the United States is becoming more and more of a topic of conversation and controversy; eighteen states have outlawed the death penalty and the governors of three other states declaring a moratorium, meaning they will not sign executions during their time in office (Lovett). The national trend of banning the death penalty should definitely continue. Many criminals on death row are exonerated, making it an unreliable system of punishment. Also, capital punishment is not used equally in cases. The death penalty can also be considered cruel and unusual punishment, which is against the 8th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The death penalty should be abolished because it is not the right way to deal with
The death penalty is a valid form of criminal punishment for some situations. One example would be the case Gregg vs. Georgia which was decided by the Supreme Court on July 2, 1976. It began when Troy Leon Gregg was found guilty of armed robbery and murdering two people in 1973. He was the first person in the US that the Supreme Court charged with the death sentence. The US Supreme Court ruled that Gregg’s 8th and 14th amendment rights were not violated because he went through the entire judicial system. He was tried and sentenced in a correct legal way. Gregg had a premeditated plan that took the lives of two individuals Gregg was never actually given the death sentence because the night before he was supposed to die Gregg escaped from prison and was killed
“The death sentence is a barbaric act . . . It is a reflection of the animal instinct still in human beings.” Said by Nelson Mandela. The death penalty is a very heated topic with strong opinions on both sides. There is a cornucopia of articles and statistics that support both sides. Although it is a more moral and personal option but there were a few facts that truly outweighed the benefits of the death penalty. The death penalty just has so many factors that could cause problems in the prisoner’s death. Although the prisoner may have desired corporal punishment, it does not justify a cruel and unusual death. Nelson Mandela had such a view back in his time that still holds up to this day. I believe the death penalty should be completely banned in the United States because the cost is ineffective, killing is an irreversible act, the methods are inhumane.
The debate on the death penalty is an extremely controversial topic in the United States. Much of this is attributed to the fact that today; very few developed countries still use capital punishment. In fact, only 21 countries carried out capital punishment in 2012. There are many reasons to ban the death penalty. The death penalty can be very inaccurate, it fails at deterring crime, and costs more tax dollars. There is no reason to keep an obsolete method of punishment like the death penalty in such a developed country like the United States, especially when it has no statistically proven benefits.
The main purposes of the criminal justice system are rehabilitation, incapacitation, retribution and deterrence but of those, the first two are the most important to the continued success of society. Theoretically, society would like to help its criminal members so they may once again become productive individuals. If this is not possible they would like them contained to prevent further harm to the general populace (the concepts of rehabilitation and incapacitation). In the case of capital punishment, we hope its presence will deter criminals but based on several studies, it does not reduce homicide rates in comparison to a state that does not use capital punishment. (Lamperti) Based on this, imprisonment serves three of the four purposes of criminal justice, the only remaining is retribution. The emotional drive to hurt those that hurt us is not a sufficient reason to execute a fellow person. By allowing this we simply continue the chain of violence. The concept of an eye for an eye is juvenile and something that has not been endorsed in the developed world for decades. We do not rape the rapist or injure an assaulter, why is murder any different? If you do not believe in redemption and find retribution an important factor of the justice system note this; dying is the easy way out. Death is instantaneous; there is no prolonged suffering, just a fast
The use of the death penalty is one of the most controversial public policies, and laws, related to the sanctions imposed upon individuals convicted of a capital crime, or death eligible offense, as defined by law. The administration of the death penalty, or capital punishment, for those individuals convicted of a capital crime remains the subject of debate because of the finality associated with executions and whether any deterrent effect can be attributed to the use of the death penalty (Schmalleger, 2012). The debate regarding the deterrent effect of the death penalty has been addressed in various research studies, but econometric models that address the deterrent effect of the death penalty have been extensive and confusing by presenting
Patrice, I also believe that the death penalty does not prevent crimes from being committed in the United States. That is so true that the criminals do not care or think about the consequences of their actions while there are committing a horrific crime. The United States should make the death penalty illegal because most of the criminals are possibly on drugs or alcohol abuse. This subject is a tough one to speak about because there are criminals that commit heinous crimes, but on the other side of the coin, there have been several cases where the criminal is
A widely known form of retribution is the death penalty. The Death Penalty puts you on death row if you committed a crime such as; treason, terrorism, federal murder, large-scale drug trafficking. After you are put on death row, it may take years before you are executed, some even die from natural causes or suicide before their execution. Execution can be done in many forms such as; Lethal Injection (typically a combination of the three drugs sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride for immediate death) , Electrocution (Commonly known method is the electric chair which only six states do any more), Gas Chamber (Lethal gas which yet again only six states do any more), Firing Squad (group of soldiers designated to shoot down
As generations pass by, more people are likely changing for the good or the bad. Changing for the bad means that they would start committing crime because they are forced, influenced or potentially to feel they will “never get caught”. Firstly, crime is an action or activity that is not really illegal, but considered to be wrong. Committing crimes is hurtful to the one committing crime and the victim of the crime. This research paper consists of reasons and a further in cite on juveniles being sentenced to the death penalty. Everyone feels bad for children, because they are posed as innocent. They don’t seem that innocent when they commit a heinous crime. The research will include the factors that relate to juveniles committing crime,