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Assuming those elements are satisfied, capital punishment is warranted in certain situations.
The prospect of conviction in error is one of the strongest positions against capital punishment, precisely because the concept of valuing the preservation of the freedom of the innocent from wrongful conviction over the value of ensuring punishment for the guilty is fundamental to American justice. By extension, one could argue convincingly that protection against wrongful execution is even more important than wrongful criminal conviction in general. However, it is possible to establish more stringent standards of proof, judicial review, and myriad other conceivable procedural safeguards short of abolishing capital punishment altogether. Therefore, that approach would seem logically preferable. Capital punishment is morally justified in certain circumstances, in which case the remaining moral obligation of a civilized society is simply to ensure that the sentence is carried out quickly, efficiently, and without unnecessary suffering.
Capital punishment is the only practical alternative to conviction for crimes so heinous that they require lifetime incarceration, as much to protect innocent members of society as to provide a means of punishment or retribution. In that sense, it is difficult to understand the suggestion that individuals too dangerous to live among the rest of civilized society have any moral right to lifetime sustenance at the expense of the very members of society who must be protected from their voluntary conduct.
In many cases, the outrageousness and cruelty of criminal acts justifies protecting innocent members of society from further harm in a manner more beneficial to society than a manner more beneficial to the criminal, and at society's expense. By
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References
Dershowitz, Alan, M. (2002) Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. New York: Little Brown & Co.
Friedman, Laurence, M. (2005) a History of American Law. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Hall, Kermit, L. (1992) the Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nowak, John, E., Rotunda, Ronald, D. (2004) Nowak and Rotunda Hornbook on Constitutional Law, 7th Edition (Hornbook Series). St. Paul, MN: West
Death Penalty All indications are that capital offenses are on the rise and the response to this phenomenon has been a cry to impose capital punishment as retribution. Certainly the issue is one of the most hotly debated in the world today; both for consideration of its humaneness as well as efficacy as a deterrent. For the purposes of this assignment we will examine the issue from both sides with the
Opponents also provide evidence that the death penalty is unjust. Data show that death row prisoners are disproportionately low income, minority, and under-represented by the legal system. Thus, we many wonder if those who can't afford the best lawyers are more likely to be sentenced to death, and if so, then we may have effectively put a price on the life of a criminal. Similarly, if the flawed legal system
Capital Punishment Currently, 38 states have legalized capital punishment statutes. In most states, the reinstatements of the death penalty were a response to public outcry over the perceived increase of violent crimes. There are now more than 3,000 people on death row, and more are being convicted each year. Despite this legalized status, a vocal group of opponents have raised questions regarding the constitutionality, fairness and effectiveness of capital punishment. This paper
The study also made an assessment of the 14 countries who eradicated the capital punishment. Murder went up by 7% from five years prior to the abolition period to five years following the abolition claimed by the study. Besides, researches were conducted by Prof. Issac Erlich from the years 1933 to 1969. He came to the conclusion that "An added execution per year might bring down the number of
Death Penalty for Juvenile Offenders Supreme Court by a majority decision on March 1, 2005 in Roper v. Simmons held that death penalty for juveniles was "cruel and unusual" and as such the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution forbid the execution of offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed. The action reversed the death sentences of 72 convicted murderers in the U.S.
Death Penalty is the most severe forms of punishment that can be accorded to a criminal who has committed a crime and deserves to be punished. The brief history of death penalty shows that this is nothing new, because it was something that was practiced right from the eighteenth century BC, in Babylon, and thereafter in Athens, and in Rome, and in Great Britain. The death penalty methods of punishments