The Pros And Cons Of Capital Punishment

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Introduction and definitions: “Capital punishment refers to the process of sentencing convicted offenders to death for the most serious crimes (capital crimes) and carrying out that sentence. The specific offenses and circumstances which determine if a crime (usually murder) is eligible for a death sentence are defined by statute and are prescribed by Congress or any state legislature” (BJS). Capital offenses at the state level usually consist of some form of murder or some number of aggravating circumstances to another offense such as cruelty, recklessness, malice, etc. At the Federal level they consist of espionage, murder relating to the smuggling of aliens, and other related murders (Yingling, 2016).
There are 58 countries in the world …show more content…

executions in the period from 1890 to 2010 were botched. In the 2014 book, Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America 's Death Penalty, Austin Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, describes the history of flawed executions in the U.S. during that period. He reports that over those 120 years, 8,776 people were executed and 276 of those executions (3.15%) went wrong in some way. Lethal injection had the highest rate of botched executions” (DPCI 2). The breakdown of methods revealed that hanging attributed to 3.12%, electrocutions attributed for 1.92%, lethal gassing attributed to 5.4%, lethal injection attributed to 7.12%, and firing squad attributed to 0%. “Since 1973, more than 150 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. From 1973-1999, there was an average of 3 exonerations per year. From 2000-2011, there was an average of 5 exonerations per year” (DPCI …show more content…

“Compounding pharmacies in the traditional role make drugs prescribed by doctors for specific patients with needs that can’t be met by commercially available drugs” (DeNoon). “The Food and Drug Administration does not regulate compounding pharmacies. Compounding pharmacies drew national attention in 2012, after a meningitis outbreak killed 64 people and was traced to steroid injections brewed at a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts” (McClam).
This has brought about concerns about safety and secrecy in the administration of lethal drugs in executions.
The International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists (IACP) Board of Directors in a release dated March 24, 2015 discourages its members from participating in the preparation, dispensing, or distribution of compounded medications for use in legally authorized executions. “The issue of compounded preparations being used in the execution of prisoners sentenced to capital punishment continues to be a topic of significant interest. It is important to first understand the origin of this issue: states are turning to compounded preparations for this purpose because the companies that manufacture, the products traditionally used have unilaterally decided to stop selling them for use in executions. IACP believes that a national discussion needs to be conducted on whether a pharmaceutical

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