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Can race and poverty play a factor in the death penalty
Can race and poverty play a factor in the death penalty
Law and morality and death penalty
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Death Penalty The death penalty, outlawed in most of Europe, Canada, Australia and most other countries in the world, is still practiced in almost 40 states in the U.S. Today, there are more than 3,000 people on death row waiting the day of their execution. They are put to death by methods such as hanging, electrocution, lethal injection and by firing squad. Since the death penalty was reinstated bye the supreme court in 1976, by the Gregg v. Georgia decision, more than 525 people have been put to death.
Today there are many people for the death penalty and see nothing wrong with it but there are many people who feel hat it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The 8th amendment of the U.S. protects its citizens from cruel and unusual punishment but the death penalty hasn’t fell under the amendment yet. Nobody on either side of the death penalty debate wants to see an innocent person put to death, and yet studies have found that one in seven people sent to death row are later proven innocent. Still more innocent people are being sent to death row each year. In one case a prisoner was two days away from being executed when he was proven innocent.
That means that many people reach death before they are proven innocent. In the last twenty-four years eighty-five innocent people have been released from death row, and will never get back the years of their lives they missed but just escaped a murder of themselves. In Illinois the governor has blocked executions to find out why more death row inmates have been found innocent and released than executed. The governor of Illinois is not the only one examing the death penalty but many others are looking further into the capital punishment. New technologies, like DNA testing, have made it possible to definitely prove or disapprove innocence in hundreds of cases where genetic evidence has been preserved.
In many cases DNA evidence has been a troublesome effort, requiring lots of resources and sometimes taking years of effort to work. Many people, regardless of their viewpoint about the constitutionality of the death penalty, would agree that if a person was going to trial and could be executed, he would be represented fairly. However there are factors unrelated to the crime that have been committed that determines who gets executed and who doesn’t. Those factors are poverty, race, and geography. It has been pr...
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...egulations concerning the death penalty. Something so important as a person living or put to death should be a nation wide regulated act not for each state to have its own standards and rules. The death penalty should be banned because of many reasons, which make it unfair.
In order to live if you are innocent and convicted of a crime and receive the death penalty you have to be white, very wealthy to provide a good representation and have to live in a state, which doesn’t strongly use the capital punishment for sentencing. Many studies show that a majority of people favor alternatives to the death penalty such as life in prison without parole plus restitution to the victim’s family. Out of three hundred and fifty convictions in which a person was given the death penalty and proven that they didn’t commit the crime, twenty-three were executed before they could be released. This means all of the years they sat in jail knowing their innocence they didn’t get to find out that they were proven not guilty by the system. I don’t think anyone would want to be in their position so the death penalty should be abolished for many reasons until it is fair and 100 % right in its convictions.
“DNA Testing and the Death Penalty.” ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union. 3 Oct. 2011. Web. 22 April 2014.
Don't you think that putting people to death is brutal? Wouldn't you rather have them stay in prison for the rest of their lives? In fact, it costs far more to execute a person then to keep him or her in prison for life. The EighthAmendment states that it prevents cruel and unusual punishment, and the death penalty is violating it. The Supreme Court case, McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) violates the Eighth Amendment purpose. Therefore, the death penalty clearly defies the Eighth Amendment and shouldn't be used for people who have convicted murder.
A significant aspect of the eighth amendment to the United States Constitution is that the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments is prohibited. However, interpretations of the definition of what a cruel and unusual punishment consists of have become extremely ambiguous. For example, many argue that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it is cruel to take another person’s life willingly; however, others argue that it is acceptable if it is done in a controlled and humane manner. Over the course of the United States history, punishments have ranged from public whippings
1188 people have been executed in the United States between the years of 1977 and 2009.[1] Most death penalty cases involve the execution of murders.[2] However, capital punishment can be applied to other crimes such as espionage and treason.[3]
Many call capital punishment unconstitutional and point to the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution for support. The amendment states that, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines be imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment be inflicted." Those who oppose the death penalty target the 'cruel and unusual' phrase as an explanation of why it is unconstitutional. Since the Framers of the Constitution are no longer with us and we base our nation on the words in which that document contains, the legality of the death penalty is subject to interpretation. Since there is some ambiguity or lack of preciseness in the Constitution, heated debate surrounding this issue has risen in the last ten years.
The death penalty debate in the United States is dominated by the fraudulent voice of the anti-death penalty movement. The culture of lies and deceit so dominates that movement that many of the falsehoods are now wrongly accepted as fact, by both advocates and opponents of capital punishment. (Sharp) Opponents of capital punishment are extremely outspoken and vehement in their arguments. The American Civil Liberties Union believes the death penalty violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment. However, the death penalty is not cruel and unusual punishment, the authors of the United States Constitution’s Eighth Amendment related “cruel and unusual” punishment to methods used in ages past. The Eighth Amendment was created to outlaw such practices as bur...
The Death Penalty Should Be Enacted In Illinois Due to the recent releases of newly exonerated Death Row inmates, individuals and organizations are calling for a moratorium- a cooling off period for state executions. The cases of just a few inmates makes it apparent that this would be a necessary step to save innocent lives. After 17 years in prison, Illinois Death Row inmate Anthony Porter was released from jail after a judge threw out his murder conviction following the introduction of new evidence. This reversal of fortune came just two days before Porter was to be executed. As reported in USA Today, Porter's release was the result of investigative research as conducted by a Northwestern University professor and students. The evidence gathered suggested that Porter had been wrongly convicted. Were these new revelations and the subsequent release of Porter a lucky break or a freak occurrence? Not likely, reports DeWayne Wickham, also of USA Today. He points out that since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, of those sentenced to death, 490 people have been executed while 76 have been freed from Death Row. This calculates into one innocent person being released from Death Row for every six individuals that were executed. This figure correlates with the 1996 U.S. Department of Justice report that indicates that over a 7-year period, beginning in 1989, when DNA evidence in various cases was tested, 26% of primary suspects were exonerated. This has led some to conclude that a similar percentage of inmates presently serving time behind bars may have been wrongly convicted prior to the advent o...
From the time the first colonists arrived in the late Sixteen Hundreds Pennsylvania executions were carried out by public hanging (Cor.state.pa.us, 2014). In Eighteen Forty Three, Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish public hangings. From Eighteen Thirty Four until Nineteen Fifty Three each county was responsible for carrying out private hanging of criminal within the wall of the county jail.
... without parole and let them sit in jail for the rest of their lives regretting their decision rather than providing them with a way out. In response, I believe that the Bill of Rights, specifically the Eighth Amendment, prohibits cruel and unusual punishment (Sangiorgio, 2011). If there is any punishment much crueler than death, please let me know. In addition, it is time to face the fact that our judicial system is prejudiced. For instance; in southern states, 8 percent of the black criminals who murder get the death penalty. Only 1 percent of white murderers get capital punishment. Also, murderers are seven times more likely to get the death penalty for murdering a white person, as they are if they murdered a black person. This strikes me as blatant prejudice (Siennick, 2012). The death penalty needs to removed and abolished through a constitutional amendment.
The death penalty continues to be an issue of controversy and is an issue that will be debated in the United States for many years to come. According to Hugo A. Bedau, the writer of “The Death Penalty in America”, capital punishment is the lawful infliction of the death penalty. The death penalty has been used since ancient times for a variety of offenses. The Bible says that death should be done to anyone who commits murder, larceny, rapes, and burglary. It appears that public debate on the death penalty has changed over the years and is still changing, but there are still some out there who are for the death penalty and will continue to believe that it’s a good punishment. I always hear a lot of people say “an eye for an eye.” Most people feel strongly that if a criminal took the life of another, their’s should be taken away as well, and I don’t see how the death penalty could deter anyone from committing crimes if your going to do the crime then at that moment your not thinking about being on death role. I don’t think they should be put to death they should just sit in a cell for the rest of their life and think about how they destroy other families. A change in views and attitudes about the death penalty are likely attributed to results from social science research. The changes suggest a gradual movement toward the eventual abolition of capital punishment in America (Radelet and Borg, 2000).
The problem with this is that, once done, there’s no going back. Since the death penalty was reinstated, 144 men and women has been released from death row. That is 144 people who were wrongly convicted of a crime and released, sometimes moments before execution. One study says that 1 out of 25 (4.1 percent) sentenced to death did not commit the crime accounted for. Regarding the 144 men and women previously mentioned, “As a percentage of all death sentences, that 's just 1.6 percent. But if the innocence rate is 4.1 percent, more than twice the rate of exoneration, the study suggests what most people assumed but dreaded: An untold number of innocent people have been executed” (Levy). The study puts into play a number of factors, but the statement still stands. Yet another aspect that affects those on death row, is
Almost all nations in the world either have the death sentence or have had it at one time. It was used in most cases to punish those who broke the laws or standards that were expected of them. Since the death penalty wastes tax money, is inhumane, and is largely unnecessary it should be abolished in every state across the United States. The use of the death penalty puts the United States in the same category as countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia which are two of the world’s worst human rights violators (Friedman 34). Lauri Friedman quotes, “Executions simply inject more violence into an already hostile American society.”
The death penalty is racist, it punishes the poor, it causes the innocent to die, it is not a deterrent against violent crime, and it is cruel and unusual punishment. More than half of the countries in the world have already abolished the death penalty and the U.S should abolish it too. It is wrong and cruel. Some states in the U.S still hold the death penalty because they think it will keep U.S citizens safe, but we can just keep the murders in a separate patrolled jail. Abolish it and we may save the lives of the people that may have been executed innocent.
Americans have argued over the death penalty since the early days of our country. In the United States, only 38 states have capital punishment statutes. As of year ended in 1999, in Texas, the state had executed 496 prisoners since 1930. Laws in the United States have changed drastically in regards to capital punishment. An example of this would be the years from 1968 to 1977 due to the nearly 10 year moratorium.
The death penalty has been around for centuries. It dates back to when Hammurabi had his laws codified; it was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Capital punishment in America started when spies were caught, put on trial and hung. In the past and still today people argue that, the death penalty is cruel, unusual punishment and should be illegal. Yet many people argue that it is in fact justifiable and it is not cruel and unusual. Capital punishment is not cruel and unusual; the death penalty is fair and there is evidence that the death penalty deters crime.