Used Death Penalty has been opposed by

Used Death Penalty has been opposed by

Used In Todays CriminalCapital Punishment, Should It Or Should It Not Be Used In Today’s CriminalJudging SystemWhile Capital Punishment has been one of the most feared things of ourtime, it is still being questioned if it is unconstitutional.The Death Penaltyis being enforced in more than 100 countries in the world and are usually inused in politically-related cases.Although it has been the case in manycountries throughout the world it has been said that the Death Penalty is “crueland unusual punishment” which is a direct violation to the Bill of Rights. Capital Punishment is a certain copy of the earliest days of slavery, when youhad no rights or any different opinion, and like then, executions have no placein our civilized society.The Death Penalty, throughout it’s years of existence,has always been against the views of the people, either because of it’sbrutality or because of it’s lack of effectiveness.

The Death Penalty has been opposed by the people since the beginning ofit’s era, which was around 1976, when the United States Supreme Court declaredthat the death penalty was not against the Constitution.But if read directlythe Eight Amendment of the U.S. Constitution “prohibits cruel and unusualpunishments” and not only that but abolitionists also think that CapitalPunishment ensures Americans equality for all .The abolitionists also did apoll which ensured that there was “no support for the view that the deathpenalty provides a more effective deterrent to police homicides than alternativesanctions.Not for a single year was evidence found that police are safer injurisdictions that provide for capital punishment” The highest homicide rateswere also in Death Penalty states with executions: 9.

7 homicides per 100,000people as compared to 5.1 in states without the Death Penalty .It has alsobeen shown that the Death Penalty is racially biased and unfair.There has been substantial evidence to show that courts have beenimpulsive, racially biased, and unfair in the way in which they have sentencedsome persons to prison but others to death.In 1944 Gunnar Myrdal reported inhis book American Dilemma that “the South makes the widest application of theDeath Penalty, and Negro criminals come in for much more than their share of theexecutions” Between the years of 1930 and 1940 the African Americans only madeup about 12 percent of the United States’ population, but between those timesthey also made up about 51 percent of the people that were executed.Juries aremore likely to impose the death penalty on blacks than on whites accused of thesame offense (Administra- tion Office of the Courts).

Of the 145 cases studiedby the Administration Office of the Courts it was shown that whites would havereceived the death penalty at a higher rate since they met the criteria forcapital punishment more often.Yet, the case studies revealed that this was notthe situation.Is the value of a white life worth more than a person of color?When Capital Punishment is put into a case and the person has beenkilled there is no way to get back from that if they are later found to havebeen innocent.If a person is sentenced to life without parole and is laterfound to be innocent, that person can still be released, but if the person wasput to death there is no way of giving life back to someone who’s been executed.For example, a man about 5 years ago was set free after he was in jail for 12years and after he was 72 hours from being executed.

In his case, theprosecutors used perjured testimony and suppressed evidence which imprisoned him.The witness that set him free was a sixteen year old who while imprisoned for aseparate murder conviction, confessed to killing the officer whom Randall Adamswas in jail for killing (“The Case”1).For us to kill those people who haveacted outside the boundaries of acceptable human behavior puts us in the sameposition as they are in-we become killers.It is also a view that people musttake because the people on death row did not get there on their own, theirfamilies and communities share the responsibility of making those people whoconsider committing the brutal acts they committed, so why should they be theindividuals to take the punishment (“Talking”2).

Executions give society theunmistakable message that human life no longer deserves respect, they are alsoirrevocable and can be inflicted upon the innocent.Why did the U.S. SupremeCourt change their minds about the Death Penalty?In 1972, the Supreme Court declared that under then existing laws “theimposition and carrying out of the death penalty..

.constitutes cruel and unusualpunishment in violation of the eighth and Fourteenth Amendments” This was foundto be “constitutionally unacceptable”But then in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Courtruled that the death penalty is not unconstitutional.”The court ruled tha.

….

tthese new statutes contained “objective standards to guide, regularize, and makerationally reviewable the process for imposing the sentence of death” Although some of the law imposing the administration and regulation ofcapital punishment might be in violation of the constitution.This idea wasbest quoted by Hugo Adams Budeau:”Opposition to the Death Penalty does not arisefrom misplace sympathy for convicted murderers.On the contrary, murder demonstrates a lack ofrespect for human life.For this very reason, murder isabhorrent, and any policy of state authorized killings isimmoral.

” So is our Supreme Court trying to “get rid” of human lives, is this why thegovernment proved the death penalty to not be unconstitutional.Scholarsagainst the death sentence assure that all doctrines of religion, ethics, andmorality are clear that “human beings must not harm one another, nor should theydo to others what they would not have other do to them” (“Taling” 2).The DeathPenalty would be put into a court case based on the appeal and the jurisdictionof the judge?The only manner in which the Death Penalty may be justified is whenthose convicted have acted outside the boundaries of acceptable human beha-vior.But not even then would it have to be necessary to do so, sequentialpunishments may include life in jail without parole which is not only 6 to 10time less expensive but also give the accused a chance to make meaningfulchanges in his/her life, to make contributions to society, to relate to familyor to even have a chance to be proven not guilty.

Because there is no way togive life back to an innocent bi-standard.States also spend resources thatcould be spent doing other things that will benefit them more than a deathpenalty.States such as Florida have spent an average of $3.2 million per personsince 1972.California spends almost $100 million per year n capital cases andNew York can start looking at something withing that range once the deathpenalty, which was signed into law by Governor Pataki in 1994, takes place.Thestate has yet to announce how and when executions will be carried out, but thesure thing is that when it does go into effect the cost will come from takes,which were also supposed to be decreasing as passed by the state legislature.

The state of New Jersey has also had the Death Penalty for over 13 years andit’s costing tax payer money, but why have the penalty if not one person has yetto be executed.If this was the case would they have thought of the expense? Capital Punishment is uncivilized in theory and inequitable and unfair inpractice; so why should we stoop to this level of murder?The Death Penalty is ultimately cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishmentand violates the right to life.Since 1977 the methods used to “exterminatecriminals” since 1977, out of the 220 inmates 106 were electrocuted, 103 bylethal injection, 9 by gas chamber, 1 by firing squad, and 1 by hanging.

Abolitionists believe that this society cannot mirror the brutality of the crimecommitted by the convicted person because it is judicial murder.CapitalPunishment is a brutal act that does not enhance respect for human life; itcheapens and degrades it .Abolitionists also believe that “the state is ateacher and when it kills, it teaches vengeance and hatred.If the “barbaricpractice of execution has been abolished in most major industrial countries,even in south Africa, so can the United States (“Death”2).”An execution is adramatic, public spectacle of official, violent homicide that teaches thepermissibility of killing people to solve social problems–the worst possibleexample to set for society” Will society put money into schools, rehabilitation,community services, and jobs, or will it bankrupt itself with more prisons andmore victims?The death penalty is no solution to violence.Works Cited”The Case Against Capital Punishment”.

Prodigy-World Wide Web-Software.Computer Software, Sept.1995.(http://www.bdt.com/home/mwood/deathpen.

html).”The Death Penalty”.Prodigy-World Wide Web-Software.Computer Software,Sept.1995.(http://www.peacenet.

org/prisons/pubs/out-of-time/sept95/dp.html).”New Jersey’s Racist Death Penalty”.Prodigy-World Wide Web-Software.

Computer Software,Feb.7,1996.(http://www.

cs.oberlin.edu…

t-Death-Penalty.html).”New York State Death Penalty”.

Prodigy-Worlwide Web-Software.Computer Software,Sept.7.

1995.(http://www.peacenet.org/prisons/archive/articles/distro-list.html).

Stevens, Leonard A.Death in the Balance. Lexington:Heath and Company,1989.”Talking Points on the Death Penalty.”Prodigy-World Wide Web-Software.Computer Software, Sept.1995.(http://www.weber.u.washington.edu/~lursa/wcadp/talkpt.html).