The death Penalty

Death Penalty

Capital punishment, also known as the Death Penalty, is a legal penalty enacted against a person who has been found guilty, via the judicial process, of committing a capital offense. This paper seeks to briefly introduce the history of the death penalty, and introduce current thought for and against the use of the death penalty in the United States.

The earliest record of an established death penalty law is found in the Code of King Hammurabi of 18th century BC Babylon, which allowed the death penalty for 25 crimes.[footnoteRef:1] One famous ancient examples of the death penalty can be found in the Trial of Socrates who was sentenced to death, by consumption of hemlock, in a Greek court. In the United Sates, the first recorded legal execution was carried out by British soldiers in 1776 against Nathan Hale, a revolutionary War Solider, who was hung for treason. Hanging was the ordinary means used to carry out death penalties in the United States until the invention of the Electric chair. In New York on August 6, 1890, Ax murdered, William Kemmler was the first person to be executed by electric chair. In the United States today, lethal ejection is the most common form of execution. [1: Death Penalty Information Center, Introduction to the Death Penalty, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i-history-death-penalty, (Accessed Nov. 17, 2010) .]

The rightness or wrongness of the death penalty has been a long held civil debate. Those who favor the death penalty ultimately believe that the death penalty is justified, i.e. It offers the victims and the state retribution for the crime committed. Since the punishment fits the crime it is fair and offers victims closure and a sense of justice. In addition, many believe that it is an effective deterrent to would-be killers. The belief that capital punishment deters crime was an underlining reason that criminals were crucified by Roman soldiers or drawn and quartered by English executioners. They believed that if the punishment was horrible enough, the criminal will think twice before committing a capital offense. Opponents believe that crimes worthy of capital punishment are committed under an array of circumstances unaffected by the sentencing standard.

Those who oppose the death penalty are often motivated by humanitarian issues. No doubt the humanitarian issues that are raised are numerous. They range from the question of cruel and unusual punishment, to disproportionate death penalty demographics for poor or minority defendants. One issue of great interest for those who support a moratorium on the death penalty is the increasing recognition that the court system is fallibility. Craig Haney, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, points out the many things that can, and do in fact, go wrong in death penalty cases which, in his opinion, creates a situation where defendant are not 'death worthy.' He cites cases where death row inmates are exonerated and notes that these cases are striking to public opinion and causes a second-look at the system. However, he moves forward with a more nuanced argument that defendants who are guilty of a crime endure many judicial errors which cause them to face harsher sentence than legally necessary. He writes, "The failure to follow these minimal standards is likely to continue to produce miscarriages of justice at the penalty phase stages of capital cases, resulting in wrongful condemnations that would have resulted in life sentences had competent counsel handled them."[footnoteRef:2] [2: Craig Haney, Exoneration and Wrongful Condemnations: Expanding the Zone of Perceived Injustice in Death Penalty Cases, Golden University Law Review [Vol 37], 9/17/2006, p.172]