By definition to punish is " to cause undergo pain, loss; to impose a penalty" (Webster's New World Dictionary) Capital punishment has been around since approximately the eighteenth century, and back in that day death was not the harshest punishment available from law enforcement; Instead many of the people were tortured so bad, they would rather die then undergo the pain. Many people were burned, stoned, and beheaded. Still in today's society, the United States in particular practices capital punishment quite often. The Declaration of Independence tells us " Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." How does the government secure these rights? Governments prohibit interference with rights by law, and to make the legal prohibitions stick; governments threaten punishment to anyone who violates them. (Van den Haag, 53) When the law violation is very serious, the punishment can conclude in death. Capital punishment has become one of the biggest debating topics since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. Capital punishment needs to be taken to another level to prevent the killing of innocent men, control and correctly administer that capital punishment is fair, and how heinous a crime must be to determine the sentence for imprisonment or capital punishment. False eyewitness testimony is the principle cause of wrongful convictions in U.S. courts. There are, of course, several types of eyewitness error, from simple cases of mistaken identification to perjured testimony. (Cohen, 39) This should be taken into consideration from our court system. The witnesses that testify may have seen the alleged killer, but how can they actually be so sure? In many states there is no formal procedure of hearing new... ... middle of paper ... ...on Civil and Constitutional Rights. Committee on the Judiciary. Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions. Oct 1993. 25 Nov. 2004. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did535.com United States. U.S. Dept. of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Bulletin. Dec. 1996. 21 Nov. 2004. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/cp95.txt.com Van den Haag, Ernest, John P. Conrad, and Arthur J. Goldberg. The Death Penalty a Debate. New York: Plenum P, 1983. Williams, Mary E., ed. The Death Penalty opposing viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven P, 2002. Williams, Mary E., ed. Capital Punishment opposing viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven P, 2000.
Randa, Laura E. “Society’s Final Solution: A History and Discussion of the Death Penalty.” (1997). Rpt.in History of the Death Penalty. Ed. Michael H. Reggio. University Press of America, Inc., 1997. 1-6 Print.
This paper will consider eye witness testimony and its place in convicting accused criminals. Psychology online (2013) defines “eye witness testimony” as a statement from a person who has witnessed a crime, and is capable of communicating what they have seen, to a court of law under oath. Eye witness testimonies are used to convict accused criminals due to the first hand nature of the eye witnesses’ observations. There are however many faults within this system of identification. Characteristics of the crime is the first issue that will be discussed in this paper, and the flaws that have been identified. The second issue to be discussed will be the stress impact and the inability to correctly identify the accused in a violent or weapon focused crime. The third issue to be discussed is inter racial identification and the problems faced when this becomes a prominent issue. The fourth issue will be time lapse, meaning, the time between the crime and the eye witness making a statement and how the memory can be misconstrued in this time frame. To follow this will be the issue of how much trust jurors-who have no legal training-put on to the eye witness testimony, which may be faltered. This paper references the works of primarily Wells and Olsen (2003) and Rodin (1987) and Schmechel et al. (2006) it will be argued that eye witness testimony is not always accurate, due to many features; inter racial identification, characteristics of the crime, response latency, and line up procedures therefore this paper will confirm that eyewitness testimonies should not be utilised in the criminal ju...
Eyewitness is most common issue in the United States. Eyewitness misidentification is a major issue in the United States' Justice System, but there is a logical solution to end this problem instantly.
Dieter, Richard C. "Innocence and the Death Penalty: The Increasing Danger of Executing the Innocent." DPIC. Death Penalty Information Center, 1 July 1997. Web. 12 Dec. 2014. .
There are over sixty offenses in the United States of America that can be punishable by receiving the death penalty (What is..., 1). However, many individuals believe that the death penalty is an inadequate source of punishment for any crime no matter how severe it is. The fact remains, however, that the death penalty is one of the most ideal forms of punishment. There are other individuals who agree with the idea that capital punishment is the best form of punishment. In fact, some of these individuals believe that this should be the only form of punishment.
Eyewitnesses are primarily used by the criminal justice system for investigating and prosecuting crimes, particularly in circumstances where it is the only evidence available (Wells & Olson, 2003). Their testimony is highly regarded as it allows for police, prosecutors, judges and juries to establi...
In the court of law, eyewitnesses are expected to present evidence based upon information they acquired visually. However, due to memory processing, presenting this information accurately is not always possible. This paper will discuss the reliability of eyewitness testimony, its use in a relevant court case, and how the reasonable person standard relates to eyewitness testimony.
In this paper, I will look at what can go wrong in eyewitness identification. We will discuss if eyewitness identification can be considered valid evidence for convicting individuals of a crime. And what precautions can be put into place to protect individuals from wrongful conviction and help make the process more trustworthy.
Murder, a common occurrence in American society, is thought of as a horrible, reprehensible atrocity. Why then, is it thought of differently when the state government arranges and executes a human being, the very definition of premeditated murder? Capital punishment has been reviewed and studied for many years, exposing several inequities and weaknesses, showing the need for the death penalty to be abolished.
This essay will discuss the various views regarding the death penalty and its current status in the United States. It can be said that almost all of us are familiar with the saying “An eye for an eye” and for most people that is how the death penalty is viewed. In most people’s eyes, if a person is convicted without a doubt of murdering someone, it is believed that he/she should pay for that crime with their own life. However, there are some people who believe that enforcing the death penalty makes society look just as guilty as the convicted. Still, the death penalty diminishes the possibility of a convicted murderer to achieve the freedom needed to commit a crime again; it can also be seen as a violation of the convicted person’s rights going against the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Eyewitness identification and testimony play a huge role in the criminal justice system today, but skepticism of eyewitnesses has been growing. Forensic evidence has been used to undermine the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and the leading cause of false convictions in the United States is due to misidentifications by eyewitnesses. The role of eyewitness testimony in producing false confessions and the factors that contribute to the unreliability of these eyewitness testimonies are sending innocent people to prison, and changes are being made in order to reform these faulty identification procedures.
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.
For example, the old man that lived beneath the boy and his father testified that he heard a fight between the boy and the father and heard the boy yell, “I’m gonna kill you,” along with a body hitting the ground, and then claims that he saw the boy running down the stairs. With this information, along with other powerful eyewitness testimonies, all but one of the jury members believed this boy was guilty. The power of eyewitness testimony is also shown in Loftus’s (1974) study. In this study, Loftus (1974) found that those who claimed to “see” something were usually believed even when their testimony is pointless. She discovered in her study that only 18 percent of people convicted if there was no eyewitness testimony, 72 percent of people convicted when someone declared, “That’s the one!”, and even when the witness only had 20/400 vision and was not wearing glasses and claimed “That’s the one!”, 68 percent of people still convicted the person. This proves that in 12 Angry Men and Loftus (1974) study, eyewitness testimony is very powerful and influential in one’s decision to convict a
More than seventy percent of voters support the death penalty and according to followers of capital punishment, capital punishment upholds our society ((Sharp , 1997). Ernest Van den Haag, Professor of Law, believes that the death penalty is a form of punishment that should be implemented to individuals who violate the freedom of other fellow individuals. Van den Haag contends, the Constitution does not enforce the death penalty, yet merely grants the power to elected officials to authorize capital punishment. “Murders are punished, as are all offenders, not just for the suffering they caused their victims, but for the harm they do tosociety by making life insecure and by requiring citizens to take protective measures” (Haag, 1968).
When someone is legally convicted of a capital crime, it is possible for their punishment to be execution. The Death Penalty has been a controversial topic for many years. Some believe the act of punishing a criminal by execution is completely inhumane, while others believe it is a necessary practice needed to keep our society safe. In this annotated bibliography, there are six articles that each argue on whether or not the death penalty should be illegalized. Some authors argue that the death penalty should be illegal because it does not act as a deterrent, and it negatively effects the victim’s families. Other scholar’s state that the death penalty should stay legalized because there is an overcrowding in prisons and it saves innocent’s lives. Whether or not the death penalty should be