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What Are The Ethical Issues In To Kill A Mockingbird

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To Kill A Mockingbird is a 1960 novel written by Harper Lee. The novel presents difficult issues in the world through the young eyes of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. The novel revolves around a criminal case between a black man and a white woman. The woman, Mayella Ewell, claimed that Tom Robinson raped her. When Tom is found guilty, he is given the death penalty. In our world today, rape isn’t usually a capital crime, but in the time of the novel, it was. “Jem was shaking his head. “I know it’s not right, but I can’t figure out what’s wrong--- maybe rape shouldn’t be a capital offense” (Lee, 294). The history of the death penalty plays a large part in why Tom was sentenced to death. The very first cases of capital crimes in the United States started with the original colonists. Of course there was severe punishment for bigger crimes such as murder and treason. In fact, treason was the reason the first man was ever executed in the United States. There was capital punishment for silly crimes, though, like stealing grapes, killing chickens and trading with Indians. Capital Punishment wasn’t perfect, far from it actually, but it was on it’s way to a long history of what was punishable and what was not in the eyes of the government. …show more content…

The remaining nineteen states who don’t use the death penalty, do not find the form of punishment constitutional. In the U.S. Constitution, it states that every person has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even though, the criminal will rot in jail for the twenty-five to life, those states still believe everyone has the right to life. Crimes punishable by death in the thirty-one states that use capital punishment include murder, treason and espionage, which is the use of spies to gather information about the

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