Cpital Punishmnet

Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is the lawful infliction of death as a punishment and since ancient times it has been used for a wide variety of offences. There are many different reasons why people are either for or against the capital punishment. There are religious reasons, moral reasons, and most of all basic human rights. Throughout my paper I will discuss the history of the capital punishment, the different methods, reasons why people are for or against it, and my personal opinion. The USA, together with China, Japan and many Asian and Middle Eastern countries, plus some African states still retain the death penalty for certain crimes and impose it with varying frequency. Capital Punishment in this country is a very controversial issue, and has been for quite some time. The history of the capital punishment in America dates all the way back to 1622, where Daniel Frank was executed in the Colony of Virginia for the crime of theft. (UAA) Many more unrecorded executions occurred until the U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics began keeping track in 1930. During that time, there was an average of about 150 executions per year. That number rose until about 1938 then began to decline until 1967, when executions in the U.S. came to a halt. There was no law or court ruling that resulted in this; it was more of a self-induced moratorium on the state level. The legal and moral questions seemed to be coming into play.

Then a ruling in 1972 by the U.S. Supreme Court stated that the capital punishment under current statutes is "arbitrary and capricious" and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. (Furman v. Georgia) That ruling was reached on a vote of five to four, clearly showing how even the U.S. Supreme Court Justices, the highest authority of the law, were torn on the issue. This ruling essentially made Capital Punishment illegal in the United States. This lasted about four years, until another case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court (Gregg v. Georgia 1976) that reinstated the capital punishment. It stated that it must be administered with guided discretion, meaning it must be applied fairly and uniformly. Two additional cases brought before the Supreme Court this year (Jurek v. Texas) and (Profit v. Florida) upheld the original ruling, that the capital punishment is Constitutional. All of these court rulings deal with only the legality and constitutionality on Capital Punishment. However, there are many more fractions to be examined to truly evaluate the effectiveness of the capital punishment.

The key part of the capital punishment is that it involves death, something which is permanent for humans.. This creates a major problem when "there continue to be many instances of innocent people being sentenced to death."(Tabak 38) In our legal system, there exist numerous ways in which justice might be poorly served for a recipient of the death sentence.

When thinking about this issue I tried putting myself in both positions for and against and to making a firm decision on if I thought it was right or wrong was hard. I also believe that capital punishment does not deter crime I was also swayed because I felt that it was very wrong that innocent people have died from the capital punishment, it's bad enough that some innocent people serve long jail sentences just because the courts messed up. I also feel that the racism that is observed with capital punishment is wrong, it's not right that more minorities are put to death

A vast misconception concerning capital punishment is that it saves society the costs of keeping inmates imprisoned for long periods of time. Which preserves the due process of justice, the court appeals involved with the capital punishment becomes a long, drawn-out and very expensive process. "The average time between sentencing and execution for the 31 prisoners put on death row in 1992 was 114 months, or nine and a half years.(Stewart 50) Criminal justice process expenses, trial court costs, appellate and post-conviction costs, and prison costs perhaps including years served on death row awaiting execution... all told, the extra costs per capital punishment imposed in over a quarter million dollars, and per execution exceeds $2 million." (Cavanagh 4) In earlier times capital punishment was quite common, the value of life was less, and capital punishment was probably quite acceptable. In today's society, capital punishment is becoming more focused on the humanitarian and individual rights and due process of justice. Capital punishment is becoming an unrealistic form of punishment because of the ever possibility of mistaken execution.

First, I will discuss the methods of the capital punishment. There are thirty eight states that allow the capital punishment; thirty seven of them use lethal injection as first choice. The process is a long tedious one; it starts with binding the inmate to a gurney with monitors placed on their arms. Long tubes connect the needle through a hole in a cement block wall to several intravenous drips. "Two needles are then inserted into usable veins, usually in the inmate's arms. The first is a harmless saline solution that is started immediately. Then, at the warden's signal, a curtain is raised exposing the inmate to the witnesses in an adjoining room. Then the inmate is injected with sodium thiopental, and anesthetic that puts the inmate to sleep. Next flows pavulon or pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the entire muscle system and stops the inmates breathing. Finally the flow of potassium chloride stops the heart (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org)." The inmate initially dies from an overdose because of all the different medications injected. This is the most humane method of the capital punishment, it is seemingly painless. However, in cases where inmates have been long time drug users and their veins are already damaged the execution team has injected the medication into a muscle instead of the vein, which causes extreme pain.

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