Capital Punishment is Not Only Unusual, But Cruel
The most widely known aspect of the eighth amendment is the fact that it prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel and unusual punishment is perceived as punishment that causes “an unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain” (Bailey). Is capital punishment cruel and unusual? It is one of the most controversial topics in America today. In effect since the 1600s, the US
Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was “cruel and unusual” in 1972 but reversed this decision when a "cleaner" way to bring about death was found in 1976 (Encarta). This "cleaner" way is death by lethal injection, which is quick and painless if administered correctly. Capital punishment is used for many different reasons and has been enforced in many different methods through the years, for “when crime mounts in the US, the demand for punishment also increases” (Rottenberg 569). Is it right for us to be able to kill another human being who breaks the law? Why don't we just use life imprisonment instead? There are so many moral issues surrounding capital punishment and whether or not it is a cruel and unusual form of punishment.
Few of these generalizations remain very clear, no matter what the situation.
I personally believe the death penalty should be considered cruel and unusual based on three reasons, current racial issues and report findings, personal opinions on punishment standards, and my religious beliefs.
Since capital punishment has been reinstituted, the issue has been a major discussion in the media and among the American public. Along with the discussions, questions have arisen on whether the death penalty is a racist punishment. A 1990 report released by the federal government's General
Accounting Office found a "pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing and imposition of the death penalty" (Bailey). After reviewing over 2,500 homicide cases and sentencing patterns in Georgia in the 1970s, the report concluded that a person accused of killing a white was
4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than a person accused of killing a black. The Stanford Law Review published a study that found similar patterns of racial dispair, based on the race of the victim, in Arkansas,
Florida, Georgia, Il...
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...raised: "Is it morally right?" The number of problems with the death penalty are enormous, ranging from racism to cruel methods, and these problems will never be resolved unless the death penalty is forever seen as unconstitutional in the eyes of the eighth amendment.
Works Cited
Bailey, Erik. "Murder, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence" Salon.com 24
Aug 1997
<http://www.salon.com/feature/news/1997/08/24/opinion.html>
Costanzo, Mark. “Just Revenge.” Elements of Argument. Ed. Annette T.
Rottenberg. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. 592-601.
Rottenberg, Annette. “Punishment.” Elements of Argument. Ed. Annette
T. Rottenberg. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. 569-570.
Wasserstrom, Richard. “Punishment v. Rehabilitation.” Elements of
Argument. Ed. Annette T. Rottenberg. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
2000. 570-579.
Williams, Mary. “Capital Punishment.” Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia.
CD-ROM. New York: Microsoft, 1998.
Capital punishment and torture are often looked down on in today’s societies because they are viewed as cruel and unconstitutional, but perhaps they would help in more ways then we would like to admit. They can be beneficial in many ways such as encouragement to be truthful, encouragement to live by the laws, and as a source of punishment. Capital punishment and torture are thought to be too painful, and the person doing the punishment is also committing a crime.
Who are we, any of us, to decide whether or not the man standing next to us, murderer or otherwise, is “no longer fit to be among us”? Capital punishment is used for such crimes as treason, murder, terrorism, kidnapping, and even for perjury causing the execution of an innocent person. It has been debated for years, whether or not the death penalty is just. And over two-thirds of the countries in the world have disallowed any form of government from practicing the death penalty. In the Eighth Amendment of our Constitution it is stated that cruel and unusual punishments, such as death, shall not be inflicted upon a man. The insertion of this small statement in one of the documents that our country was built upon is proof of man’s ability to recognize that there is indeed a line to be crossed when it comes to punishment. Yet somehow, man’s actions show a complete disregard for this part of our Constitution.
From the pre-historic clans to the modern-day countries, the majority of social units have carried the notion of justice, and therefore systems of punishment are almost innate to human nature. As legal mechanisms evolved to be more sophisticated and elaborate, the suitability of a punishment developed to be matter worthy of intricate analysis. In order to achieve an impartial system of punishment, modern nations have come up with a commonly agreed set of criteria consisting of six theories. “These theories are deterrence, retribution, just deserts, rehabilitation, incapacitation, and more recently, restorative justice.” (Banks, 103) While each of the aforementioned criteria could be analyzed single-handedly or in a cumulative manner, the present essay focuses on consequential outcomes of Death Penalty execution or lack thereof through retribution theory in the notorious case of the Clutter family killings and robbery of November 15, 1959. In spite of writer Truman Capote’s sympathetic stance towards the murderers Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Edward Smith in his non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, revolving around the Clutter massacre and its aftermath, the incident itself is concrete proof that Death Penalty should be actively practiced.
All throughout the media, one hears of murders and homicides. It is a crime to kill someone, but the government "murders" people all the time without thinking twice. There is a risk when pulling the trigger that this horrible fate will happen. If it is not right to kill someone, why does the government kill people all the time?
The idea of putting another human to death is hard to completely fathom. The physical
The Hammurabi Code says “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, while Mahatma Gandhi says, “an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind”. Who is right? Supporters of capital punishment argue that it deters crime and gives closure to families of victims, while others say that is has not been proven to deter crime and it opens the possibility of executing innocent people.
We teach the children only the highest of our ideals, the most virtuous of our values. An integral part of our “code of chivalry” is Immanuel Kant’s Golden Rule: Do as you would be done by. It is taught as a rule to be followed not only in school, but one to live by. Children never fail to imitate the behavior of their elders. This is a beckoning to us, the people of the village who will raise the child, to illustrate our words, to show that the Golden Rule isn’t just an empty cliché.
Legal professor Ernest van den Haag believes that the death penalty is the good as in a punishment for terrible crimes that are committed. On the other hand professor of philosophy Hugo Adam Bedau thinks that the death penalty is not appropriate, do to it takes the lives of people that can not afford a good defense. I would have to agree with Ernest van den Haag. When a person commits a serious crime like murder, the only fitting penalty is death. "Maldistribution inheres no more in capital punishment than in any other punishment." (Haag 274) Fear of the death penalty can be a good deterrent. Many people also try to abolish the death penalty by talking about the suffering a convicted murderer has to go through, but what about what the victim had to go through. Further, if we get rid of the death penalty it will show that we are not willing to impose our punishments on people who brake our laws.
I believe that the death penalty is a humane form of punishment, reason being is that the people who commit unthinkable crimes are not the people we need to make this world. I believe people that commit murder and people who sexually assault children should definitely be executed. The reason why is because they assault people who are defenseless and abuse people just for the thrill of it. It does not bring peace to the victim 's family but it does remove one more savage from this world.
More than 607 people were executed worldwide due to capital punishment, only 22% less than in 2013. While death from capital punishment has gone down, people still believe we have the right to take a living person’s life away. If that person committed a crime that was equivalent to the punishment of death, should society continue in its ways of ‘an eye for an eye’; or move onto a more civilized solution? The death penalty is shown to be a more barbaric thing for some people in the U.S., and Europe, but in other countries, like in the Middle East, it is considered a way to assert dominance over other countries of political leaders that you would go as far as to kill someone for a petty crime.
Steven Hayes, one of the two men accused in the brutal home invasion in Connecticut in 2007, was sentenced to death in 2010. If you’re unfamiliar with the case, he along with Joshua Komisarjevsky, broke into a home, kidnapped the mother with the hope of her retrieving funds from the family's bank account, eventually killed the mother and two young daughters after having sexually assaulted the mother and the younger daughter, beat the husband with a baseball bat (attempted murder), and set the house on fire immediately prior to fleeing the scene. Most people have absolutely no qualms with the notion that these inhumane beasts are likely to be executed for their crimes. Yet I can assure you that among "enlightened" individuals, the idea of favoring
Since the times of King Hammurabi of Babylon back in the Eighteenth Century B.C. the death penalty has been around. For good or bad, the death penalty was created as a deterrent to end crime through brutal and painful executions such as burning alive, being impaled, drowning, and crucifixion. Over the years, the way the death penalty works has changed and even been abolished by many countries. In America however, the death penalty is a widely discussed issue with many supporters on both sides on whether or not it’s inhuman or necessary. To me, the death penalty is inhuman and wrong.
As human beings, it is morally wrong to take the life of another human being. In the past 15 years, 441 people have been executed in the U.S. All people were raised to believe that killing is wrong, but also live in a country where the government puts people to death. Many countries do not kill their convicted criminals. Canada, Mexico, Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and so many other places have banned the death penalty. Germany has not murdered its convicted criminals in more than six decades. Americans
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. Secondly, many believe that capital punishment is right because of the justice given to the victim’s family.
guarantees of equal protection of the laws and due process. But in 1976, in _