The Death Penalty The Death Penalty started in the eighteenth Century B.C. when it was established into the Code of King Hammurabi in Babylon, which codified the the Death Penalty for 25 different crimes.The Eighth Amendment states that the Death Penalty is considered a “cruel and unusual punishment,” which means that the Death Penalty is unfair to the persons getting the Penalty, but is also unconstitutional because it’s a punishment that ends the lives of people. So really you are killing the person that killed another or more, and you are just adding to the death toll. I oppose the Death Penalty because it could put innocent lives to death and costs way too much the country could afford to use. To actually conduct a Death Penalty …show more content…
If a person is about to get murdered, there is probably some witness to the crime or are part of the crime. If they the witness or person part of the skirmish, they would usually tell the police before or after the murder. If before, it could be easily avoided and the murderer would be sentenced. If after, the murderer would probably be gone from the crime scene and would require to be hunted. This supports my claim because murders could be avoided if we knew about beforehand, and we could save a lot of people from unreasonable death. So trying to avoid death as best as possible is one of the things that we all want to avoid, and the sooner murderers are gone, the …show more content…
The risk of innocent people being sentenced is high. About 14% of executions were of the innocent, and they weren’t found out until long after their execution. This supports my claim because too many innocent people are being executed against their will, and most of them aren’t even involved with the murder, just innocent bystanders who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In conclusion, there is just too much risk of innocent bystanders being executed for doing nothing wrong, and we should get the facts and evidence straight before we go kill an innocent
Based on the research I did on various documents and articles that came from the schools library database system, I was able to find out that the death penalty was officially passed and recognized as the eighth amendment in 1791 as a part of the bill of rights, but based on the “American Government” library database, "The death penalty has a long history. Hammurabi's Code and the Old Testament of the Bible both provided for it. It was practiced in both ancient Greece and Rome. Capital punishment persisted into the Middle Ages when it was often applied to heretics,
Firstly, the risk of executing an innocent is a frightening fact. Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice. To execute an innocent person is reprehensible; a risk that should not be taken. What did these innocents get out of their life? They have a right to live. Secondly, there is a better alternative to capital punishment: life without parole. Capital punishment is usually quick. Citizens that commit such serious crimes should realize
There are many reasons to both support and oppose the death penalty. Many people can feel very strongly about whether or not they approve of this method of punishment. I feel that the death penalty is wrong, and I believe that there is much support to back this up. I believe that the death penalty is wrong because it is not an effective deterrent, racially and economically bias, unreliable, expensive, and morally wrong of society.
The eighth Amendment states that the government is prohibited from cruel and unusual punishment. The death penalty is a complete violation of this amendment. Every one, guilty or innocent has the right to live freely, and the government taking away this simplicity of rights, is unconstitutional.
I feel that this is also why the death penalty is a good thing. Making sure no killer is ever getting the chance to murder anyone ever again makes me feel safer. I feel applying the death penalty is one thing the government is actually doing right to help America. The killer should know not to do the crime if they cannot deal with the consequences. Everyone by now knows what the death penalty is and how it works. A person today should know that if they murder someone, then the death penalty is what they will be getting. In my opinion people that have murdered someone will get what they deserve both during and after life. Every criminal should know that they are going to be judged for the crimes they have committed. Helping to eliminate the killers in the world is just another way capital punishment is
The death penalty till this day remains to be a very controversial topic. Some people may argue that it should be considered a form of cruel and unusual punishment; others may rebuttal in saying that the death penalty is capital punishment. When visiting the idea of placing someone to death one must bear in mind the possibility of condemning an innocent person through such torture, the brutalizing effect on society it may leave, and the serious psychological trauma that a defendants family and friends may face. Is this really what the justice system is willing to place on the line in order to gain a form of so called justice. I mean reasonably speaking what will anyone gain from such an action. It definitely will not bring the harm to be undone. As stated in the encyclopedia under the theory of judicial torture “ the use of torture was confined to capital crimes, for which the death penalty or mutilation could apply” (PIHLAJAM, 2004). Looking at how the death penalty is conducted people should not be treated like animals, given a due time to be put down. No human being deserves such treatment whether or not his or her offense was so horrific and traumatic. Is that not the lesson being taught to society when the criminal is captured? Yet, the law as a jury of peers, men just like the accused, may cast the same sin upon him. Why should this action be considered in any way to be fair or believed to be capital punishment?
Death penalty violates the eighth constitutional amendment. Death is both unusually severe punishments, unusual in pain, in its enormity and its finality. It does not serve as a penal purpose effectively but a less severe punishment. The constitutional infirmity in the death punishment is that it treats human race members as nonhumans and as objects that need to be toyed with and discarded. It is thus not in consistent with the fundamental premise of the Clause that even the criminal who is the vilest still remain a human being possessed of common human dignity. Death penalty, therefore, subjects human beings to a fate that is forbidden by the principle of civilized treatment that is guaranteed by the clause. It is, therefore, clear that according to this clause, death today is cruel and unusual
The death penalty, or capital punishment, has been around as early as the Seventh Century B.C. and is still used in many countries today, including the United States. There are many arguments stating capital punishment should be abolished for many reasons, including that capital punishment violates the Bill of Rights, and life in prison is a more effective deterrent than capital punishment; there are also counter-arguments, saying that capital punishment should not be abolished for reasons such as capital punishment achieves justice for those who have been wronged and that it brings a sense of closure to families.
The death penalty is a legal punishment practiced worldwide, which includes execution being the punishment, mandated to someone convicted of a crime. The death penalty has existed since 1700 B.C. when the Code of Hammurabi was a legal document in ancient Babylonia. Ever since the Code of Hammurabi many countries have adopted this punishment including the United States. When European settlers came to America, Americans obtained the death penalty. During the establishment of the Constitution, framers continued the custom which led to the eighth amendment. “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury…; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb… nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” (Constitution 1).
The courts positions of the death penalty has changed over the years. For centuries societies have used death as the ultimate penalty for crime. In the 1960's, the court ruled against the death penalty as a "cruel and unusual punishment", which was forbidden by the eighth amendment of the Constitution. By the 1990's the death penalty was again in wide use supported by the court and Congress, which continually expanded by legislation the crimes for which death would be an acceptable penalty.
Over the course of history, the death penalty is a very heated and debatable topic. The death penalty is often viewed as inhumane and cruel. As a country that prides itself on American values and justice, we need to call attention to the criminals sitting in our jails. This is a monumental decision that no one wants to make, but someone has to. My personal stand point of the death penalty is that the death penalty is in place to help rid our society of criminal's that are incapable of being rehabilitated and released back into society. I support the death penalty because these criminals have caused emotional upheaval and are costing our society more funds required to sit in our jails with the life sentence with no parole rather than exercising
The death penalty can lead to the death of innocent people. For example, “…According to a new study, serious errors occur in almost 70% of all trials leading to the death penalty…”(Leibman). This shows that if 100 people were put on death row, 70 would have serious mistakes in their
"Since 1973, over eighty people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence" (Innocence and the Death Penalty 1). Statistics say that of the three-thousand six hundred people on death row right now, at least one hundred of them are innocent (Capital Punishment 1). When an innocent person is executed, the real killer is still on the streets ready to victimize someone else (Pragmatic Arguments 1). The most important problem is that when an innocent person is executed, they represent another human being who did not deserve to die.
The death penalty clearly puts innocent lives at risk, since 1976, “138 innocent men and women have been released from death row, including some who came within minutes of execution” (OADP). Recent studies argue that more than 4% of death row inmates are innocent meaning that the rate of wrongful death sentences is higher than what some experts had estimated. According to the Death Penalty Info Center, the main reasons that someone innocent could get wrongly convicted are: eyewitness error: confusion or faulty memory, government misconduct: police and prosecution, false confessions: mental illness, “junk science”: mishandled evidence, or snitch testimony: given in exchange for a reduction in sentence. Kirk Bloodsworth was the first person to get exonerated, have your conviction reversed, in the United States in 1993, which honestly it wasn’t that long ago. He was a twenty- three year old who had just served four years in the Marines and had no previous criminal record, so how was it possible that he got convicted and sentenced to death for a crime that he didn’t commit? Because of faulty eyewitness identification. The sketch the police came up with was a 6 feet and 5 inches tall man with dirty blond hair, and a slim fit. Bloodsworth was not that tall or thin and had red hair, obviously not fitting the description. Therefore, he spent nine years total in prison, two of those in death row, for a crime he didn’t commit. DNA evidence gained Bloodsworth his freedom back (United
I don’t support the death penalty because it shows just how savage humans can be with each other. However, many Americans support the death penalty for a number of reasons. After someone’s loved one is murdered, the family immediately has thoughts about killing the offender. They feel like it’s the right thing to do after their loved one has been taken away from them and that the person that committed the crime should suffer as their loved one had to. They feel like justice has been served and that they can continue on with their daily lives. What they all fail to realize is that by killing the offender, their loved one is not going to come and knock on their doors and everything return to normal.