Death penalty cruel and unusual punishment essay

Death penalty cruel and unusual punishment essay

Death Penalty: Cruel and Unusual Punishment,Death Penalty In Texas Research Paper

The death penalty is defined as a punishment for a criminal who has broken the law, and that criminal shall be executed. This is death penalty: cruel and unusual punishment essay in which we will discuss why capital punishment is not ethical at all. Want to receive an original paper on this topic? Just send us a “Write my paper” request WebCruel and unusual punishment being defined as torture or a deliberately degrading punishment, in no way does the death penalty fall into this category. Having the death WebIn , the Supreme Court held executions of mentally retarded criminals are “cruel and unusual punishments” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Since WebDeath Penalty Cruel And Unusual Punishment. The death penalty, also known as capital punishment or execution, is a punishment that kills someone for committing a crime, WebThe death penalty or capital punishment was established as punishment for a crime as far back as the Ancient Laws of China. In 16th century BC Egypt the first death sentence ... read more

producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize and improve the law, removed capital punishment from its Model Penal Code. The ALI, which created the modern legal framework for the death penalty in , indicated that the punishment is so arbitrary, fraught with racial and economic disparities, and unable to assure quality legal representation for indigent capital defendants, that it can never be administered fairly. Thoughtful citizens, who might possibly support the abstract notion of capital punishment, are obliged to condemn it in actual practice. Unlike any other criminal punishments, the death penalty is irrevocable. Speaking to the French Chamber of Deputies in , years after having witnessed the excesses of the French Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette said, "I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me.

Since , in this country, there have been on the average more than four cases each year in which an entirely innocent person was convicted of murder. Scores of these individuals were sentenced to death. In many cases, a reprieve or commutation arrived just hours, or even minutes, before the scheduled execution. These erroneous convictions have occurred in virtually every jurisdiction from one end of the nation to the other. Nor have they declined in recent years, despite the new death penalty statutes approved by the Supreme Court. Disturbingly, and increasingly, a large body of evidence from the modern era shows that innocent people are often convicted of crimes — including capital crimes — and that some have been executed.

He was convicted largely based on eyewitness testimony made from the back of a police car in a dimly lit lot near the crime scene. This sample of freakish and arbitrary innocence determinations also speaks directly to the unceasing concern that there are many more innocent people on death rows across the country — as well as who have been executed. Several factors seen in the above sample of cases help explain why the judicial system cannot guarantee that justice will never miscarry: overzealous prosecution, mistaken or perjured testimony, race, faulty police work, coerced confessions, the defendant's previous criminal record, inept and under-resourced defense counsel, seemingly conclusive circumstantial evidence, and community pressure for a conviction, among others.

And when the system does go wrong, it is often volunteers from outside the criminal justice system — journalists, for example — who rectify the errors, not the police or prosecutors. To retain the death penalty in the face of the demonstrable failures of the system is unacceptable, especially since there are no strong overriding reasons to favor the death penalty. Prisoners are executed in the United States by any one of five methods; in a few jurisdictions the prisoner is allowed to choose which one he or she prefers:. The traditional mode of execution, hanging , is an option still available in Delaware, New Hampshire and Washington.

Death on the gallows is easily bungled: If the drop is too short, there will be a slow and agonizing death by strangulation. If the drop is too long, the head will be torn off. Two states, Idaho and Utah, still authorize the firing squad. The prisoner is strapped into a chair and hooded. A target is pinned to the chest. Five marksmen, one with blanks, take aim and fire. Throughout the twentieth century, electrocution has been the most widely used form of execution in this country, and is still utilized in eleven states, although lethal injection is the primary method of execution.

The condemned prisoner is led — or dragged — into the death chamber, strapped into the chair, and electrodes are fastened to head and legs. When the switch is thrown the body strains, jolting as the voltage is raised and lowered. Often smoke rises from the head. There is the awful odor of burning flesh. No one knows how long electrocuted individuals retain consciousness. In , the electrocution of John Evans in Alabama was described by an eyewitness as follows:. the first jolt of volts of electricity passed through Mr. Evans' body. It lasted thirty seconds. Sparks and flames erupted … from the electrode tied to Mr. Evans' left leg. His body slammed against the straps holding him in the electric chair and his fist clenched permanently.

The electrode apparently burst from the strap holding it in place. A large puff of grayish smoke and sparks poured out from under the hood that covered Mr. Evans' face. An overpowering stench of burnt flesh and clothing began pervading the witness room. Two doctors examined Mr. Evans and declared that he was not dead. Evans was administered a second thirty second jolt of electricity. The stench of burning flesh was nauseating. More smoke emanated from his leg and head. Again, the doctors examined Mr. At that time, I asked the prison commissioner, who was communicating on an open telephone line to Governor George Wallace, to grant clemency on the grounds that Mr.

Evans was being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. The request …was denied. At , the doctors pronounced him dead. The execution of John Evans took fourteen minutes. The introduction of the gas chamber was an attempt to improve on electrocution. In this method of execution the prisoner is strapped into a chair with a container of sulfuric acid underneath. The chamber is sealed, and cyanide is dropped into the acid to form a lethal gas. Execution by suffocation in the lethal gas chamber has not been abolished but lethal injection serves as the primary method in states which still authorize it. In a panel of judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California where the gas chamber has been used since ruled that this method is a "cruel and unusual punishment. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens:.

A few seconds later he again looked in my direction. His face was red and contorted as if he were attempting to fight through tremendous pain. His mouth was pursed shut and his jaw was clenched tight. Don then took several more quick gulps of the fumes. His face and body turned a deep red and the veins in his temple and neck began to bulge until I thought they might explode. After about a minute Don's face leaned partially forward, but he was still conscious. Every few seconds he continued to gulp in. He was shuddering uncontrollably and his body was racked with spasms.

His head continued to snap back. His hands were clenched. At this time the muscles along Don's left arm and back began twitching in a wavelike motion under his skin. Spittle drooled from his mouth. Approximately two minutes later, we were told by a prison official that the execution was complete. District Court , S. The latest mode of inflicting the death penalty, enacted into law by more than 30 states, is lethal injection , first used in in Texas. It is easy to overstate the humaneness and efficacy of this method; one cannot know whether lethal injection is really painless and there is evidence that it is not. As the U. Court of Appeals observed, there is "substantial and uncontroverted evidence… that execution by lethal injection poses a serious risk of cruel, protracted death….

Even a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation. Heckler , F. Its veneer of decency and subtle analogy with life-saving medical practice no doubt makes killing by lethal injection more acceptable to the public. Journalist Susan Blaustein, reacting to having witnessed an execution in Texas, comments:. Nor does execution by lethal injection always proceed smoothly as planned. In "the authorities repeatedly jabbed needles into … Stephen Morin, when they had trouble finding a usable vein because he had been a drug abuser.

Although the U. Supreme Court has held that the current method of lethal injection used is constitutional, several people have suffered because of this form of execution. In Ohio, Rommel Broom was subjected to 18 attempts at finding a vein so that he could be killed by lethal injection. The process to try to execute him took over two hours. Finally, the governor had to stop the execution and grant the inmate a one week reprieve. Nor was he the only Ohio inmate so maltreated. The state had amended its injection protocol to use a single drug, propofol, which advocates say causes severe pain upon injection. Although similar suits are pending in other states, [15] not all protocol-based challenges have succeeded; in Texas and Oklahoma, executions have continued despite questions about the potential cruelty of lethal injection and the type or number of chemicals used.

Food and Drug Administration FDA —are now the subject of federal litigation that could impact the legitimacy of the American death penalty system. Most people who have observed an execution are horrified and disgusted. In my face he could see the horror of his own death. Revulsion at the duty to supervise and witness executions is one reason why so many prison wardens — however unsentimental they are about crime and criminals — are opponents of capital punishment. Don Cabana, who supervised several executions in Missouri and Mississippi reflects on his mood just prior to witnessing an execution in the gas chamber:.

It has been said that men on death row are inhuman, cold-blooded killers. But as I stood and watched a grieving mother leave her son for the last time, I questioned how the sordid business of executions was supposed to be the great equalizer…. The 'last mile' seemed an eternity, every step a painful reminder of what waited at the end of the walk. Where was the cold-blooded murderer, I wondered, as we approached the door to the last-night cell. I had looked for that man before… and I still had not found him — I saw, in my grasp, only a frightened child.

I don't want to do this anymore. They do their best to perform the impossible and inhumane job with which the state has charged them. Those of us who have participated in executions often suffer something very much like posttraumatic stress. Many turn to alcohol and drugs. For some individuals, however, executions seem to appeal to strange, aberrant impulses and provide an outlet for sadistic urges. Warden Lewis Lawes of Sing Sing Prison in New York wrote of the many requests he received to watch electrocutions, and told that when the job of executioner became vacant. Public executions were common in this country during the 19th and early 20th centuries. One of the last ones occurred in in Kentucky, when 20, people gathered to watch the hanging of a young African American male.

Teeters, in Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society Delight in brutality, pain, violence and death may always be with us. But surely we must conclude that it is best for the law not to encourage such impulses. When the government sanctions, commands, and ceremoniously carries out the execution of a prisoner, it lends support to this destructive side of human nature. More than two centuries ago the Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria, in his highly influential treatise On Crimes and Punishment , asserted: "The death penalty cannot be useful, because of the example of barbarity it gives men. Such methods are inherently cruel and will always mock the attempt to cloak them in justice. As Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg wrote, "The deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the dignity of the human personality.

Capital appeals are not only costly; they are also time-consuming. The average death row inmate waits 12 years between sentencing and execution, and some sit in anticipation of their executions on death row for up to 30 years. In solitary confinement, inmates are often isolated for 23 hours each day without access to training or educational programs, recreational activities, or regular visits. Such conditions have been demonstrated to provoke agitation, psychosis, delusions, paranoia, and self-destructive behavior. When death row inmates successfully appeal their sentences, they are transferred into the general inmate population, and when death row inmates are exonerated, they are promptly released into the community.

Neither Death Row Syndrome nor Death Row Phenomenon has received formal recognition from the American Psychiatric Association or the American Psychological Association. Death Row Syndrome gained international recognition during the extradition proceedings of Jens Soering, a German citizen arrested in England and charged with committing murder on American soil. Justice, it is often insisted, requires the death penalty as the only suitable retribution for heinous crimes. This claim does not bear scrutiny, however. By its nature, all punishment is retributive. Therefore, whatever legitimacy is to be found in punishment as just retribution can, in principle, be satisfied without recourse to executions.

Moreover, the death penalty could be defended on narrowly retributive grounds only for the crime of murder, and not for any of the many other crimes that have frequently been made subject to this mode of punishment rape, kidnapping, espionage, treason, drug trafficking. Few defenders of the death penalty are willing to confine themselves consistently to the narrow scope afforded by retribution. In any case, execution is more than a punishment exacted in retribution for the taking of a life. As Nobel Laureate Albert Camus wrote, "For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months.

Such a monster is not encountered in private life. It is also often argued that death is what murderers deserve, and that those who oppose the death penalty violate the fundamental principle that criminals should be punished according to their just desserts — "making the punishment fit the crime. It would require us to betray traitors and kill multiple murderers again and again — punishments that are, of course, impossible to inflict. Since we cannot reasonably aim to punish all crimes according to this principle, it is arbitrary to invoke it as a requirement of justice in the punishment of murder. If, however, the principle of just deserts means the severity of punishments must be proportional to the gravity of the crime — and since murder is the gravest crime, it deserves the severest punishment — then the principle is no doubt sound.

Nevertheless, this premise does not compel support for the death penalty; what it does require is that other crimes be punished with terms of imprisonment or other deprivations less severe than those used in the punishment of murder. Criminals no doubt deserve to be punished, and the severity of the punishment should be appropriate to their culpability and the harm they have caused the innocent. But severity of punishment has its limits — imposed by both justice and our common human dignity. Governments that respect these limits do not use premeditated, violent homicide as an instrument of social policy.

Some people who have lost a loved one to murder believe that they cannot rest until the murderer is executed. But this sentiment is by no means universal. Coretta Scott King has observed, "As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder. It is almost impossible to describe the pain of losing a parent to a senseless murder. I remember lying in bed and praying, 'Please, God. Please don't take his life too. And I knew, far too vividly, the anguish that would spread through another family — another set of parents, children, brothers, and sisters thrown into grief.

Across the nation, many who have survived the murder of a loved one have joined Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation or Murder Victims Families for Human Rights, in the effort to replace anger and hate toward the criminal with a restorative approach to both the offender and the bereaved survivors. Groups of murder victims family members have supported campaigns for abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, Connecticut, Montana and Maryland most recently. But sparing them may help to spark a dialogue that one day will lead to the elimination of capital punishment. Lawrence Brewer, convicted of the notorious dragging death of James Byrd in Texas, was executed in Members of Mr. l ife in prison would have been fine. I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore.

I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want. It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, on the assumption that life imprisonment is more expensive than execution. If one takes into account all the relevant costs, however, just the reverse is true. Litigation costs — including the time of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters, and the high costs of briefs — are mostly borne by the taxpayer. The extra costs of separate death row housing and additional security in court and elsewhere also add to the cost.

A study showed that were the death penalty to be reintroduced in New York, the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of a life term in prison. State Defenders Assn. The death penalty was eventually reintroduced in New York and then found unconstitutional and not reintroduced again, in part because of cost. In Maryland, a comparison of capital trial costs with and without the death penalty for the years concluded that a death penalty case costs "approximately 42 percent more than a case resulting in a non-death sentence. The group includes over law enforcement leaders, in addition to crime-victim advocates and exonerated individuals.

Among them is former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, whose office pursued dozens of capital cases during his 32 years as a prosecutor. He said, "My frustration is more about the fact that the death penalty does not serve any useful purpose and it's very expensive. It was not my intent nor do I believe that of the voters who overwhelmingly enacted the death penalty law in We did not consider that horrific possibility. From one end of the country to the other public officials decry the additional cost of capital cases even when they support the death penalty system. Politicians could address this crisis, but, for the most part they either endorse executions or remain silent. Any savings in dollars would, of course, be at the cost of justice : In nearly half of the death-penalty cases given review under federal habeas corpus provisions, the murder conviction or death sentence was overturned.

In , in response to public clamor for accelerating executions, Congress imposed severe restrictions on access to federal habeas corpus and also ended all funding of the regional death penalty "resource centers" charged with providing counsel on appeal in the federal courts. Carol Castenada, "Death Penalty Centers Losing Support Funds," USA Today, Oct. The savings in time and money will prove to be illusory. It is commonly reported that the American public overwhelmingly approves of the death penalty. More careful analysis of public attitudes, however, reveals that most Americans prefer an alternative; they would oppose the death penalty if convicted murderers were sentenced to life without parole and were required to make some form of financial restitution.

Only a minority of the American public would favor the death penalty if offered such alternatives. An international perspective on the death penalty helps us understand the peculiarity of its use in the United States. As long ago as , it was reported to the Council of Europe that "the facts clearly show that the death penalty is regarded in Europe as something of an anachronism…. Today, either by law or in practice, all of Western Europe has abolished the death penalty. In Great Britain, it was abolished except for cases of treason in ; France abolished it in Canada abolished it in The United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that throughout the world, it is desirable to "progressively restrict the number of offenses for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment.

Underscoring worldwide support for abolition was the action of the South African constitutional court in , barring the death penalty as an "inhumane" punishment. Between and , two dozen other countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Since , 43 more abolished it. Today, over nations have abolished the death penalty either by law or in practice and, of the 58 countries that have retained the death penalty, only 21 carried out known executions in Although the Second Protocol to the ICCPR is the only worldwide instrument calling for death penalty abolition, there are three such instruments with regional emphases. Adopted by the Council of Europe in and ratified by eighteen nations by mid, the Sixth Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights ECHR provides for the abolition of capital punishment during peacetime.

In , the Council adopted the Thirteenth Protocol to the ECHR, which provides for the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, including times of war or imminent threat of war. In , the Organization of American States adopted the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, which provides for total abolition but allows states to reserve the right to apply the death penalty during wartime. The United States has ratified the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations VCCR , an international treaty setting forth a framework for consular relations among independent countries. All 51 were sentenced to death. When the State of Texas refused to honor this judgment and provide relief for the 15 death-row inmates whose VCCR rights it had violated, President George W.

In , the United States signed the United Nations UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment CAT. While it does not explicitly prohibit capital punishment, the treaty does forbid the intentional infliction of pain. Additionally, accidents aside, our methods of execution—lethal injection, electrocution, firing squad, gas chamber, and hanging—may be inherently painful. Also in , the United States ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination ICERD , a treaty intended to protect against racial discrimination, whether intentional or resulting from seemingly neutral state policies.

To meet its obligations as a party to ICERD, the United States must take steps to review and amend policies and procedures that create or perpetuate racial discrimination, including capital punishment. Once in use everywhere and for a wide variety of crimes, the death penalty today is generally forbidden by law and widely abandoned in practice, in most countries outside the United States. Indeed, the unmistakable worldwide trend is toward the complete abolition of capital punishment. In the United States, opposition to the death penalty is widespread and diverse. Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant religious groups are among the more than 50 national organizations that constitute the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The Case Against the Death Penalty was first published by the ACLU as a pamphlet in The original text was written by Hugo Adam Bedau, Ph. This version was most recently revised by the ACLU in Radelet, Death Sentencing in East Baton Rouge Parish, , 71 La. al, Los Tocayos Carlos , 43 Colum. Despite how people agree that the death penalty is justifiable, however; it still violates the international human rights laws. These laws were created to protect the lives of all human beings including the criminals, who some might agree they do not deserve to live. Even though some might say that the. One of the most controversial topics to date is the argument surrounding whether or not the death penalty should be utilized.

When majority of the people, think about problems surrounding capital punishment, they automatically jump right to it being legal or illegal. When in reality the problems are so much larger. They're issues involved with Capital Punishment, including racism, sexism and financial status to name a few, when it comes to who is being put to death. Recently, one of the most well known issues has become sexism. Gender inequality has been an issue in the United States and around the world for centuries. Although many people may not ask this question, it has always been wondered why more men are on death row and.

The issue of the death penalty is widely disputed. But nevertheless, the death penalty is an issue that needs to be addressed. Should the death penalty be abolished from our criminal justice system? Well, that depends on whom you ask. If you ask me… no. Essay Topics Writing. Home Page Research Is the Death Penalty Cruel and Unusual Punishment? Is the Death Penalty Cruel and Unusual Punishment? Essay Good Essays. Open Document. Capital punishment remains a cause for debate with people continuing to disagree on what cruel and unusual punishment consists of.

Cruel and unusual punishment being defined as torture or a deliberately degrading punishment, in no way does the death penalty fall into this category. Having the death penalty in our society deters potential violent offenders from committing crimes, saves the government money, and guarantees that offenders will not commit these crimes again. The United States should use the death penalty because it is economical and continues to be a deterrent for potential offenders. Take into consideration that the Constitution states that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can not be taken away without due …show more content… When released they go back out in society and commit the same crime or a crime worse than before. Sentencing them to life in prison places other prisoners and staff at risk.

When placed in jail knowing they have nothing else to lose with a life sentence, society has now let a murderer free in jail to murder at will. However, if released into society you now put an entire population of individuals at risk. No executed murderer has ever killed again. Showing people that commit these atrocious crimes that this behavior remains intoleratable and that a punishment that fits every crime exists shows what is necessary to detour future criminals. If more criminals believe that they can be caught, tried and executed they will be less inclined to commit such heinous crimes. If we as a government do not execute murderers that in turn could have deterred other murders, then we have allowed the killings to continue and innocent victims to die. When it fails to do that, they become of little use to its citizens.

When a society ignores their. Get Access. Decent Essays. Death Penalty In Texas Research Paper Words 4 Pages. Death Penalty In Texas Research Paper. Read More. Good Essays. How The Death Penalty Saves Lives Analysis Words 5 Pages. How The Death Penalty Saves Lives Analysis. Better Essays. Essay on The Death Penalty Words 7 Pages 7 Works Cited. Essay on The Death Penalty. The Death Penalty Is The Ultimate Punishment Words 4 Pages. The Death Penalty Is The Ultimate Punishment. Capital Punishment: Fair Or Unfair? Essay Words 8 Pages 2 Works Cited. The Death Penalty Debate Essay Words 7 Pages 2 Works Cited.

The Death Penalty Debate Essay. Is Capital Punishment Ethical? Essay Words 10 Pages. Capital Punishment is Cruel And Unusual Essay Words 5 Pages. Capital Punishment is Cruel And Unusual Essay. Capital Punishment Is Not Only Unusual, But Cruel Essay Words 4 Pages 3 Works Cited. Capital Punishment Is Not Only Unusual, But Cruel Essay. The Death Penalty is Cruel and Unusual Punishment Essay examples Words 6 Pages. The Death Penalty is Cruel and Unusual Punishment Essay examples. Capital Punishment: Not Cruel and Not Unusual Essay Words 6 Pages.

Jump to navigation Skip navigation. The American Civil Liberties Union believes the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law and of equal protection under the law. Furthermore, we believe that the state should not give itself the right to kill human beings — especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law or in the name of its people, and when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion. Capital punishment is an intolerable denial of civil liberties and is inconsistent with the fundamental values of our democratic system.

The death penalty is uncivilized in theory and unfair and inequitable in practice. Through litigation, legislation, and advocacy against this barbaric and brutal institution, we strive to prevent executions and seek the abolition of capital punishment. The death penalty system in the US is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against people, largely dependent on how much money they have, the skill of their attorneys, race of the victim and where the crime took place. People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if thevictim is white. The death penalty is a waste of taxpayer funds and has no public safety benefit. The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime; a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crime.

They ranked increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse, and creating a better economy with more jobs higher than the death penalty as the best ways to reduce violence. The FBI has found the states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates. Innocent people are too often sentenced to death. Since , over people have been released from death rows in 26 states because of innocence. Nationally, at least one person is exonerated for every 10 that are executed. In , the Supreme Court declared that under then-existing laws "the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty… constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Georgia , U. The Court, concentrating its objections on the manner in which death penalty laws had been applied, found the result so "harsh, freakish, and arbitrary" as to be constitutionally unacceptable. Making the nationwide impact of its decision unmistakable, the Court summarily reversed death sentences in the many cases then before it, which involved a wide range of state statutes, crimes and factual situations. But within four years after the Furman decision, several hundred persons had been sentenced to death under new state capital punishment statutes written to provide guidance to juries in sentencing.

These statutes require a two-stage trial procedure, in which the jury first determines guilt or innocence and then chooses imprisonment or death in the light of aggravating or mitigating circumstances. In , the Supreme Court moved away from abolition, holding that "the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution. Subsequently 38 state legislatures and the Federal government enacted death penalty statutes patterned after those the Court upheld in Gregg. Congress also enacted and expanded federal death penalty statutes for peacetime espionage by military personnel and for a vast range of categories of murder.

Executions resumed in Since then, states have developed a range of processes to ensure that mentally retarded individuals are not executed. Many have elected to hold proceedings prior to the merits trial, many with juries, to determine whether an accused is mentally retarded. In , the Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed, resulting in commutation of death sentences to life for dozens of individuals across the country. As of August , over 3, men and women are under a death sentence and more than 1, men, women and children at the time of the crime have been executed since Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Gregg v.

Georgia , et al, the ACLU continues to oppose capital punishment on moral, practical, and constitutional grounds:. Capital punishment is cruel and unusual. It is cruel because it is a relic of the earliest days of penology, when slavery, branding, and other corporal punishments were commonplace. Like those barbaric practices, executions have no place in a civilized society. It is unusual because only the United States of all the western industrialized nations engages in this punishment. It is also unusual because only a random sampling of convicted murderers in the United States receive a sentence of death. Capital punishment denies due process of law. Its imposition is often arbitrary, and always irrevocable — forever depriving an individual of the opportunity to benefit from new evidence or new laws that might warrant the reversal of a conviction, or the setting aside of a death sentence.

The death penalty violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. It is applied randomly — and discriminatorily. It is imposed disproportionately upon those whose victims are white, offenders who are people of color, and on those who are poor and uneducated and concentrated in certain geographic regions of the country. The death penalty is not a viable form of crime control. When police chiefs were asked to rank the factors that, in their judgment, reduce the rate of violent crime, they mentioned curbing drug use and putting more officers on the street, longer sentences and gun control.

They ranked the death penalty as least effective. Politicians who preach the desirability of executions as a method of crime control deceive the public and mask their own failure to identify and confront the true causes of crime. Capital punishment wastes limited resources. It squanders the time and energy of courts, prosecuting attorneys, defense counsel, juries, and courtroom and law enforcement personnel. It unduly burdens the criminal justice system, and it is thus counterproductive as an instrument for society's control of violent crime. Limited funds that could be used to prevent and solve crime and provide education and jobs are spent on capital punishment.

Opposing the death penalty does not indicate a lack of sympathy for murder victims. On the contrary, murder demonstrates a lack of respect for human life. Because life is precious and death irrevocable, murder is abhorrent, and a policy of state-authorized killings is immoral. It epitomizes the tragic inefficacy and brutality of violence, rather than reason, as the solution to difficult social problems. Many murder victims do not support state-sponsored violence to avenge the death of their loved one. Sadly, these victims have often been marginalized by politicians and prosecutors, who would rather publicize the opinions of pro-death penalty family members. Changes in death sentencing have proved to be largely cosmetic.

The defects in death-penalty laws, conceded by the Supreme Court in the early s, have not been appreciably altered by the shift from unrestrained discretion to "guided discretion. A society that respects life does not deliberately kill human beings. An execution is a violent public spectacle of official homicide, and one that endorses killing to solve social problems — the worst possible example to set for the citizenry, and especially children. Governments worldwide have often attempted to justify their lethal fury by extolling the purported benefits that such killing would bring to the rest of society.

The benefits of capital punishment are illusory, but the bloodshed and the resulting destruction of community decency are real. Deterrence is a function not only of a punishment's severity, but also of its certainty and frequency. The argument most often cited in support of capital punishment is that the threat of execution influences criminal behavior more effectively than imprisonment does. As plausible as this claim may sound, in actuality the death penalty fails as a deterrent for several reasons. A punishment can be an effective deterrent only if it is consistently and promptly employed. Capital punishment cannot be administered to meet these conditions. The proportion of first-degree murderers who are sentenced to death is small, and of this group, an even smaller proportion of people are executed.

Although death sentences in the mids increased to about per year , this is still only about one percent of all homicides known to the police. Of all those convicted on a charge of criminal homicide, only 3 percent — about 1 in 33 — are eventually sentenced to death. Between , the average number of death sentences per year dropped to , reducing the percentage even more. Mandatory death sentencing is unconstitutional. The possibility of increasing the number of convicted murderers sentenced to death and executed by enacting mandatory death penalty laws was ruled unconstitutional in Woodson v. North Carolina , U. A considerable time between the imposition of the death sentence and the actual execution is unavoidable, given the procedural safeguards required by the courts in capital cases.

Starting with selecting the trial jury, murder trials take far longer when the ultimate penalty is involved. Furthermore, post-conviction appeals in death-penalty cases are far more frequent than in other cases. These factors increase the time and cost of administering criminal justice. We can reduce delay and costs only by abandoning the procedural safeguards and constitutional rights of suspects, defendants, and convicts — with the attendant high risk of convicting the wrong person and executing the innocent. This is not a realistic prospect: our legal system will never reverse itself to deny defendants the right to counsel, or the right to an appeal. Persons who commit murder and other crimes of personal violence often do not premeditate their crimes.

Most capital crimes are committed in the heat of the moment. Most capital crimes are committed during moments of great emotional stress or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, when logical thinking has been suspended. Many capital crimes are committed by the badly emotionally-damaged or mentally ill. In such cases, violence is inflicted by persons unable to appreciate the consequences to themselves as well as to others. Even when crime is planned, the criminal ordinarily concentrates on escaping detection, arrest, and conviction. The threat of even the severest punishment will not discourage those who expect to escape detection and arrest. It is impossible to imagine how the threat of any punishment could prevent a crime that is not premeditated.

Furthermore, the death penalty is a futile threat for political terrorists, like Timothy McVeigh, because they usually act in the name of an ideology that honors its martyrs. Capital punishment doesn't solve our society's crime problem. Threatening capital punishment leaves the underlying causes of crime unaddressed, and ignores the many political and diplomatic sanctions such as treaties against asylum for international terrorists that could appreciably lower the incidence of terrorism. Capital punishment has been a useless weapon in the so-called "war on drugs. It is irrational to think that the death penalty — a remote threat at best — will avert murders committed in drug turf wars or by street-level dealers. If, however, severe punishment can deter crime, then permanent imprisonment is severe enough to deter any rational person from committing a violent crime.

The vast preponderance of the evidence shows that the death penalty is no more effective than imprisonment in deterring murder and that it may even be an incitement to criminal violence. Death-penalty states as a group do not have lower rates of criminal homicide than non-death-penalty states. Use of the death penalty in a given state may actually increase the subsequent rate of criminal homicide. Perhaps because "a return to the exercise of the death penalty weakens socially based inhibitions against the use of lethal force to settle disputes…. In adjacent states — one with the death penalty and the other without it — the state that practices the death penalty does not always show a consistently lower rate of criminal homicide. For example, between l and l, the homicide rates in Wisconsin and Iowa non-death-penalty states were half the rates of their neighbor, Illinois — which restored the death penalty in l, and by had sentenced persons to death and carried out two executions.

Death Penalty: Cruel and Unusual?,Persuasive Speech On Capital Punishment

WebThe death penalty or capital punishment was established as punishment for a crime as far back as the Ancient Laws of China. In 16th century BC Egypt the first death sentence WebIn , the Supreme Court held executions of mentally retarded criminals are “cruel and unusual punishments” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Since WebThe Death Penalty, loss of life due to previous crimes and actions, is believed by some to be extremely costly, inhumane, and cruel unlike some others whom believe it is just, The death penalty is defined as a punishment for a criminal who has broken the law, and that criminal shall be executed. This is death penalty: cruel and unusual punishment essay in which we will discuss why capital punishment is not ethical at all. Want to receive an original paper on this topic? Just send us a “Write my paper” request WebCruel and unusual punishment being defined as torture or a deliberately degrading punishment, in no way does the death penalty fall into this category. Having the death WebDeath Penalty Cruel And Unusual Punishment. The death penalty, also known as capital punishment or execution, is a punishment that kills someone for committing a crime, ... read more

Thus, through education, employment opportunities, mental health counseling, family commitment, reduction of racism we can have some impact and should strive to get better at these things. Spittle drooled from his mouth. Criminals no doubt deserve to be punished, and the severity of the punishment should be appropriate to their culpability and the harm they have caused the innocent. Sentencing them to life in prison places other prisoners and staff at risk. It seems as though it wanted to promote and increase the number of executions. cruel and unusual punishment.? Lethal Execution Essay: Complications Of The Death Penalty.

Since then, it has been a form to punish the criminals for committing such heinous crimes and putting end to violence and crime rates. Groups of murder victims family members have supported campaigns for abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, Connecticut, Montana and Maryland most recently. You may use it as a guide or sample for writing your own paper, but remember to cite it correctly. It is the most severe and harsh punishments for a crime. They felt individuals should not be put to death, but could be death penalty cruel and unusual punishment essay after much introspection and reflection.