FREE ESSAY ON DEATH PENALTY

DEATH PENALTY

The Debate On Capital Punishment
What act by the United States government kills almost a hundred people every year? The
United States Department of Justice legally executes criminals who commit certain crimes.
The crimes for which a person can be executed for are named Capital offenses, thus the
name Capital Punishment. The debate over capital punishment originates in the seventeenth
century and still continues today. Many different arguments shine throughout the debate
which I will be reviewing both sides.
Capital punishment has been in America since the early seventeenth century. The first
recorded execution in America was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony
of Virginia in 1608. Crimes advocating capital punishment varied among settlements during
the Colonial period. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, crimes such as witchcraft, rape,
perjury, adultery, and murder warranted capital punishment. In the Quaker society, crimes
such as treason and murder warranted capital punishment. In 1787, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a
signer of the Declaration of Independence, held a meeting at the home of Benjamin
Franklin calling for an end to public executions. In the fall of 1787, Rush developed the
Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. The society was instrumental in
the development of the prison system in the United States. In 1790 the Walnut Street Jail
in Philadelphia was converted into the nation's first modern prison. The emergence of the
new prison system in the United States provided an alternate means of punishment for
crimes. Rush was the first prominent American to publicly urge the abolition of capital
punishment. Over the next two decades, prisons in the United States were constructed, and
the number of crimes warranting capital punishment decreased considerably. Capital
punishment in the United States has undergone many modifications since the early
nineteenth century. Its use gradually has become more limited and constrained. However,
the death penalty has endured as a basic fact of debate in the United States. The debate
over capital punishment throughout American history has been characterized by the
struggle of a relative handful of groups and individuals to change the nation's broad and
consistent support for the sanction. The level of opposition has varied greatly. More
often than not, its strength and success have been affected by other historical events.
Today thirty-seven states and the federal government authorize capital punishment for the
commission of certain crimes. In most states, only murder is a capital offense. In order
for a specific murder to warrant the death penalty, the Supreme Court requires that two
conditions must be met. The crime must be a first-degree murder and one or more
aggravating circumstances must be present. First-degree murder involves the deliberate
and premeditated taking of a life. Aggravating circumstances refer to those aspects of a
crime that increase its severity but are apart from the essential elements of the offense
itself. 
The majority of the population in the United States argues pro capital punishment. The
first argument the public cites is that the death penalty deters criminals from
committing the vial act of murder. Deterrence is the fear created by the death penalty to
stop criminals from committing these crimes. Perhaps the most frequent argument for
capital punishment is that of deterrence. The prevailing thought is that imposition of
the death penalty will act to dissuade other criminals from committing violent acts.
Numerous studies have been created attempting to prove this belief; however, all of the
evidence taken together makes it hard to be confident that capital punishment deters more
than long prison terms do. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the overall
crime index has declined eleven percent since 1991 and is now the lowest it has been
since 1985. Violent crimes in the United States are at its lowest since 1989. The amount
of murders in the United States declined thirteen percent since 1991. The number of rapes
in the United States is at the lowest level since 1991, and the number of burglaries is
at its lowest level in two decades. In some of the biggest cities in the United States
the amount of violent crimes decreased to astonishing levels. In New York City alone the
amount of violent crimes decreased forty percent. It is hard to see why opponents of the
death penalty do not believe that it has an impact when in the 1940's and 1950's
executions took place more frequent, and the murder rate was much lower. In the 1960's,
the murder rate increased dramatically and did not decrease until the reinstatement of
the death penalty. The taking of a life by society, through the court of law, eliminates
personal vendetta and sends a message that society will not tolerate this criminal
action. Public opinion in America supports the death penalty by a more than two to one
margin, and this view rests largely on the deterrence of crime from this severe
punishment. An example of these statistics comes from the state of Florida. Support for
death penalty changes when alternatives are added. When asked simply whether they favor
the death penalty, 80 percent of Floridians said they did. 
Retribution refers to the penalty a society exacts for wrongful behavior. Retribution is
another leading argument in the pro capital punishment movement. The criminal law of a
society reflects its value system or moral code. Proponents of capital punishment believe
that the law should place less value on the life of a convicted murderer than on the life
of an innocent person. Proponents insist there is no valid substitute for the death
penalty. More serious offenses should be met by more severe penalties. Proponents
emphasize that retribution is not revenge, but the individual's desire for revenge
replaced by a concept of lawful punishment. It is important that the penalty for a crime
fulfill society's sense that justice has been served. For certain horrid infractions,
only the execution of the offender will satisfy the public that justice has been
attained. Why should a person such as OJ Simpson or Charles Manson get the satisfaction
of life imprisonment. Why should they be treated fairly or nice when they took someone's
life. Why give them the satisfaction of living in a cell with cable TV and many other
emenities that the general public does not receive. Why should they sit in jail and take
up valuable space and waist important tax money that many people could use.
The issue of expense is the most recent argument for the opponents of capital punishment.
People commonly assumed that it cost less to execute a person than it does to imprison
them for life; however, the price of execution is more costly than the cost of
imprisonment. The costs of capital cases have increased in recent years. Several reasons
account for these costs: Capital trials take longer to litigate; a second penalty phase
is required if a guilty verdict is returned; a protracted appeals process normally
follows all death sentences; and death row facilities where defendants often await
execution for many years require more money to staff and maintain. The result is that
capital cases are significantly more expensive than trials for serious felonies where the
death penalty is not applicable. Instead of dedicating scarce resources to executing a
handful of prisoners, it would be more worthwhile to sentence capital offenders to long
prison terms and use the money saved to fully fund efforts such as victim-assistance
programs. In North Carolina an execution cost two million six-hundred thousand dollars,
and in Texas an execution costs two million three-hundred thousand dollars. California
alone spends ninety million dollars a year to execute prisoners on death row. In Florida,
it costs three million two-hundred thousand dollars on each death row inmate, compared to
about five-hundred thirty-five thousand for an average of forty years for each prisoner
sentenced to life. This is a huge amount of tax payers money, but the public looks at it
as an investment in safety since these murderers will never kill again.
Cruel and unusual punishment has been at the top of the Abolitionist argument throughout
the years. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution states, Excessive bail shall not be
required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. On
June 29, 1972, a split five to four vote by the Supreme Court reached the landmark
decision in case of Furman versus Georgia. The decision rendered that the death penalty
violates the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution by being, Cruel and unusual. However,
the Supreme Court's ruling was overturned in 1976. The argument of cruel and unusual
punishment has been around since the Colonial days. Back in those days prisoners were
shot by firing squads, hanged in public, and many other barbarous forms of execution.
During hangings prisoners sometimes had there heads severed by the rope. Prisoners
sometimes suffered the agony of being shot numerous times by a firing squad. Even when
the invention of the electric chair came about, tales of flames leaping out of the heads
and legs of victims and eyeballs popping out of their heads were common. The Department
of Justice is always looking for methods that are less cruel and unusual than these
methods. Even today the methods of execution are inhumane. Such instances as doctors
taking an hour to find a vein to hook up the needles of the injection machine are
commonplace in prisons across the nation. Some people think that homicide is heinous, so
is hanging; they call hanging or capital punishment judicial murder. According to them
the vindictive impulses of society should not be accorded legal sanction. The death
penalty has been regarded as barbaric and forbidden by law. Many examples of this were
used before the eighteenth century such as impalement, burning alive, and crushing by
stones. These forms of punishment are barbaric and should not be used, but modern
technology allows us to exterminate criminals in a more fashionable manor as the gas
chamber or lethal injection. In the United States the death penalty is currently
authorized in one of five ways: hanging, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad, or
lethal injection. 
Another controversial aspect opposed to the death penalty is that innocent people are
killed even though they did not commit any crime. The executing of the innocent is rare.
From 1900 to 1985, a recent survey found that 7000 people were executed by the means of
the death penalty and 35 were innocent of capital crimes. Since 1973, eighty people on
death row have been released due to their innocence. In all the years of capital
punishment the government should have perfected the process of executing prisoners.
In the United States, the main objection to capital punishment has been that it was
always used unfairly, in at least three major ways. First, females are rarely sentenced
to death and executed, even though twenty percent of all murders that have occurred in
recent years were committed by women. Second, a disproportionate number of non whites are
sentenced to death and executed. A black man who kills a white person is eleven times
more likely to receive the death penalty than a white man who kills a black person. In
Texas in 1991, blacks made up twelve percent of the population, but forty-eight percent
of the prison population and fifty-five and a half percent of those on death row are
black. Before the 1970s, when the death penalty for rape was still used in many states,
no white men were guilty of raping nonwhite women, whereas most black offenders found
guilty of raping a white woman were executed. This data shows how the death penalty can
discriminate and be used on certain races rather than equally as punishment for severe
crimes. Finally, poor and friendless defendants, those who are inexperienced or of
court-appointed counsel, are most likely to be sentenced to death and executed. Opponents
of capital punishment have replied to this by saying that the death penalty is subject to
miscarriage of justice and that it would be impossible to administer fairly.
Through the complex debate of capital punishment I have to looked at both sides of the
argument thoroughly. I am pro capital punishment but only if certain regulations are
followed. The first reason I am pro death penalty is I believe that a person should act
as though the same action could happen to them. If a criminal decides to brutally murder
a innocent person, he or she needs to think about the consequences of their actions. If
the criminal robs a person I believe he or she needs to be robbed themselves. I believe
this process especially goes for the unlawful taking of a person's life. Some situations
I believe that this process does not work. If a person kills someone in order to protect
him or herself or people they care for, I feel that the death penalty is unjust. If a man
or woman finds outs that their spouse is cheating on them, and they kill the person the
spouse is cheating with then the death penalty is not warranted. However, the crime does
need to be punished but not given the death penalty. These crimes are called Crimes of
Passion and are commonplace in the United States. The second argument I offer is that the
death penalty rids the streets of the nation from the scum in our society. Most people
that are on death row are career criminals. This means that these people spend their
whole life committing crimes to make the streets more dangerous. When the death penalty
is enacted on these vial examples of people, the streets become more safe. I know you are
thinking why would not life in prison rid society of these criminals which it does, but
there is always the possibility of the prisoner escaping the prison and committing more
acts against society. The final argument I have to offer is of deterrence. The death
penalty spreads fear across the nation to criminals by showing that the United States
Department of Justice does not tolerate these vial actions. 
The debate over capital punishment coincides with the arguments I have reviewed. At
present the United States government is in no real danger of losing the death penalty,
but the push for the review of the corrections system is in heated debate. In the future
there will always be arguments for and against such complex issues. By looking at both
sides of the debate I hope you come to your own conclusion on this issue.
Works Cited
Stewart, Gail B. The Death Penalty. San Diego: Greenhaven Press Inc., 1998.
Flanders, Stephen A. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. New York: Facts On File, 1991. 
Williams, Mary E. Capital Punishment. San Diego: Greenhaven Press Inc., 1998.
Jacobs, Nancy R., Alison Landes, and Mark A. Siegel. Capital Punishment-Cruel and
Unusual? 
Texas: Information Plus, 1996. 
Capital Punishment. World Book. Volume 3. 1989.
History of the Death Penalty. 8 July 2000 *http://www.essential.org/dpic/history1.html*