Abolishing lethal injection would be rid an ineffective system. Lethal injection is ineffective because the drugs used in the fatal dose are becoming harder to obtain. The drugs are harder to obtain because in 2010, “Hospira Inc., the sole manufacturer of sodium thiopental, a sedative that is part of the normal three-drug mixture, stopped production” (“Europe’s Moral Stand”). This causes lethal injection to be ineffective because without the drugs, states can’t perform any executions. So until new drugs can be found, executions are halted. In addition, this adds to lethal injection being a drawback because it is becoming a waste. This is because states are giving heaps of money and support to this system yet there are no executions taking place, which defeats the purpose of having lethal injection and for this reason lethal injection needs to be abandoned. Secondly, states have been able to obtain new drugs to go forth with executions, but now there are new concerns that the new drugs are unsafe. A drug that states have begun to use to replace sodium thiopental is pentobarbital, which is a drug “intended to treat epilepsy and euthanize animals” (Lain). The problem with this drug is that “the Danish manufacturer of pentobarbital, Lund beck, has announced that the drug is unsafe for uses in lethal injections and restricted its sales for executions” (Hennessy Fiske). The manufacture of pentobarbital is not the only source arguing that this drug is unsafe. Inmates on death row also are arguing that this drug is unsafe, which has caused executions to be delayed, in addition making lethal injection ineffective. Besides this is a vulnerable point in lethal injection because it shows the lack of care states have for these criminals. State...
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...ch Is Death Worth?" BBC News Magazine. BBC, 6
Mar. 2012. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
"Retribution (In Opposition of the Death Penalty)." Death Penalty Curricula for High School.
Michigan State University Comm Tech Lab and Death Penalty Information, 1 Nov. 2001. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
"Retribution (In Support of the Death Penalty)." Death Penalty Curricula for High School.
Michigan State University Comm Tech Lab and Death Penalty Information, 1 Nov. 2001. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
"The broken machinery of death. (supply of sedatives used for execution by lethal injection) (Editorial Desk)(Editorial)(Correction notice)." The New York Times. (March 19, 2011): A22(L). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Peoria High School. 24 Mar. 2014
Paul, Winters A. "Executions Are Cruel and Inhumane." The Death Penalty Opposing Viewpoints.
Third ed. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1997. 90-93. Print.
In the minds of the American public and jurors in capital cases the perception of lethal injection is of a clean, clinical, and painless end. As stated in the article, Lethal Injection, seventy-one percent of those responding to a 2001 survey considered injection to be the least cruel form of execution (Lethal Injection). This perception is an advantage to the state because the public is much more willing to accept execution in this form and jurors are more willing to convict and pass the death sentence. At times it is understood why the death penalty would be considered in cases. Maybe the people are a threat to not only society but also to themselves, and need to be put to death so they can do no harm to anyone. Vickers gunned down a grocery store owner who was probably trying to make a living for himself and his family. Now this man is gone; his family is left in agony, and maybe Vickers deserves to die. Some people may say an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but do two wrongs make a right?
With matted hair and a battered body, the creature looked at the heartless man outside the cage. Through the dark shadows you could only see a pair of eyes, but those eyes said it all. The stream of tears being fought off, the glazed look of sheer suffering and despair screamed from the center of her soul, but no one cared. In this day in age I am ashamed to think that this is someone's reality, that this is an accurate description of a human being inside a Canadian women's prison . Exposing the truth behind these walls reveals a chauvinistic, corrupt process that serves no greater purpose. The most detrimental aspect of all is society's refusal to admit the seriousness of the situation and take responsibility for what has happened.
Radelet, Michael L., updated by the Death Penalty Information Center. Post-Furman Botched Executions. The Death Penalty Information Center
Geraghty, Thomas F. "Trying to Understand America’s Death Penalty System and Why We Still Have it." Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 94.1 (2003): 209-237. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Nov. 2009.
“The Death Penalty in America: A Cultural and Historical Analysis.” Supreme Court Debates (2004): pp. 259-288.
Streib, Victor. "Death Penalty for Female Offenders." March 1, 2002. Ohio Northern University. April 15, 2002. <http://www.law.onu.edu/faculty/streib/femdeath.htm>.
“The death Penalty: Deterrance.” Michigan State University Comm Tech Lab and Death Penalty Information Center. (2001): 1. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/argument1a.htm.
Each year there are about 250 people added to death row and 35 executed. From 1976 to 1995 there were a total of 314 people put to death in the US 179 of them were put to death using lethal injection, 123 were put to death using electrocution, 9 were put to death in a gas chamber, 2 were hanged, and 1 was put to death using the firing squad. The death penalty is the harshest form of punishment enforced in the United Sates today. Once a jury has convicted a criminal, they go to the second part of the trial, the punishment phase. If the jury recommends the death penalty and the judge agrees then the criminal will face some form of execution, lethal injection is the most common form used today. There was a period from 1972 to 1976 that capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Their reason for this decision was that the death penalty was "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment. The decision was reversed when new methods of execution were introduced. Capital punishment is a difficult issue and there are as many different opinions as there are people. In our project, both sides have been presented and argued fully.
Pasquerella, Lynn. “The Death Penalty in the United States.” The Study Circle Resource Center of Topsfield Foundation. July 1991. Topsfield Foundation. 03 Feb 2011. Web.
The Death Penalty should be discontinued to the families, human rights, and statistics. The families of the victim and the family of the one, who committed the crime, have no closure at all. The death penalty is killing a human for being convicted of a terrible crime one family may think its right but both suffer by their lost ones. “Although true closure is never really possible for the families, studies have shown that the continual process, along with the returning to court for many years, force families to confront the gruesome details of the crime many times over, making it impossible to get on with their lives.
The criminal justice system is composed of three parts – Police, Courts and Corrections – and all three work together to protect an individual’s rights and the rights of society to live without fear of being a victim of crime. According to merriam-webster.com, crime is defined as “an act that is forbidden or omission of a duty that is commanded by public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law.” When all the three parts work together, it makes the criminal justice system function like a well tuned machine.
“The Death Penalty: Pro and Con.” Wgbh.org. WGBH Educational Foundation, 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
The criminal justice system views any crime as a crime committed against the state and places much emphasis on retribution and paying back to the community, through time, fines or community work. Historically punishment has been a very public affair, which was once a key aspect of the punishment process, through the use of the stocks, dunking chair, pillory, and hangman’s noose, although in today’s society punishment has become a lot more private (Newburn, 2007). However it has been argued that although the debt against the state has been paid, the victim of the crime has been left with no legal input to seek adequate retribution from the offender, leaving the victim perhaps feeling unsatisfied with the criminal justice process.
Firstly, many believe capital punishment should be reinstated in the United Kingdom because of the financial cost of prisoners. Annually, it costs about £26,978 per prisoner when they are in jail . If a criminal is sentenced to life in jail, then the cost of their imprisonment would be many times this. In the USA, the average cost per prisoner annually in jail is $29,000 . The cost of the drugs used for the lethal injection is believed to be $86.08 . This is far less than the cost of keeping a prisoner in jail, and would save the government money that could be used to try and make the community a better and safer place.
The present system of justice in this country is too slow and far too lenient. Too often the punishment given to criminal offenders does not fit the crime committed. It is time to stop dragging out justice and sentencing and dragging our feet in dispensing quick and just due. All punishment should be administered in public. It is time to revert back to the "court square hanging" style of justice. This justice would lessen crime because it would prove to criminals that harsh justice would be administered.