...executions. For instance, in the late 18th century, when all murder in the United States was punishable by death, Pennsylvania pioneered in dividing murder into two categories. The state enacted laws that authorized punishment of first-degree murder by death, while second-degree murder was punishable by imprisonment only. Elsewhere, penal codes uniformly required death for certain serious crimes. In these jurisdictions, discretionary powers to commute death sentences gradually expanded. (A commutation substitutes a lesser penalty for a more severe one—for example, replacing execution with a life sentence.) Today in many nations, including Turkey and Japan, the death penalty remains legal but the number of executions has declined over time. Although many jurisdictions limited imposition of the death penalty, no government had formally abolished capital punishment until Michigan did so in 1846. Within 20 years Venezuela (1863) and Portugal (1867) had formally eliminated the practice as well. By the beginning of the 20th century the death sentence had been abolished in a handful of nations, such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Norway, and The Netherlands. Although not formally eliminated, it had fallen into disuse in many others, including Brazil, Cape Verde, Iceland, Monaco, and Panama. The defeat of the Axis powers provided a foundation for the elimination of the death penalty in Western Europe. Some of the nations involved in the war saw abolition of capital punishment as a...
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...executions. For instance, in the late 18th century, when all murder in the United States was punishable by death, Pennsylvania pioneered in dividing murder into two categories. The state enacted laws that authorized punishment of first-degree murder by death, while second-degree murder was punishable by imprisonment only. Elsewhere, penal codes uniformly required death for certain serious crimes. In these jurisdictions, discretionary powers to commute death sentences gradually expanded. (A commutation substitutes a lesser penalty for a more severe one—for example, replacing execution with a life sentence.) Today in many nations, including Turkey and Japan, the death penalty remains legal but the number of executions has declined over time. Although many jurisdictions limited imposition of the death penalty, no government had formally abolished capital punishment until Michigan did so in 1846. Within 20 years Venezuela (1863) and Portugal (1867) had formally eliminated the practice as well. By the beginning of the 20th century the death sentence had been abolished in a handful of nations, such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Norway, and The Netherlands. Although not formally eliminated, it had fallen into disuse in many others, including Brazil, Cape Verde, Iceland, Monaco, and Panama. The defeat of the Axis powers provided a foundation for the elimination of the death penalty in Western Europe. Some of the nations involved in the war saw abolition of capital punishment as a...
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...The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished. The death penalty has been around in the United States for over four-hundred years. The first person sentenced to death was in 1608 and he was hanged for spying on the Spanish government. Since then eighteen states have outlawed the death penalty while it is still legal in thirty-two, one of which is California. The death penalty should be abolished in every state of the United States. The expense for convicting one with the death penalty is much more expensive than sentencing a person to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Many people believe that a criminal shouldn’t be given the “easy way out” and they should suffer in prison for the rest of their lives. The death penalty often times doesn’t bring peace to the victims or the victim’s family. The death penalty is a very expensive process, and unfortunately tax payers are the ones forced to deal with those expenses. In California residents pay 90,000 dollars more per death row prisoner ("Death Penalty : The High Cost of the Death Penalty." Death Penalty : The High Cost of the Death Penalty. Death Penalty Focus, 31 Mar. 2009. Web. 14 Aug. 2013). Convicting a criminal with life in prison without the possibility of parole would cost millions less than sentencing one to death. Charging someone with the death penalty is a long, expensive process because the constitution requires a judicial case to insure no innocent person is executed. Tax payers shouldn’t have to pay millions...
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...Arguments FOR and AGAINST the death penalty The death penalty has been used since ancient times in almost every culture. Today it will still executed in some states like the USA, China, or in Islam Countries. I would like to talk about the Arguments for and against the death penalty. There are many justifications going around for capital punishment. Deterrence is the most common used argument for the death penalty. Many states believe that it is necessary to kill a prisoner to disadvise other people from committing the same kind of crime. Some people who commit violence are highly unstable or mentally ill. Murders are most committed in moments of passion, when extreme emotions overcomes himself or under the influence of drugs. In none of these cases can fear of the death penalty be expected to deter. Sometimes maybe a murderer or a rapist has a bad conscience due to his act. However, he can‘t make it undone. If he has a life-long sentence, he will always suffers for his felony. He must live with that and will never have the chance to apologise. In my opinion this punishment is a better way and in many cases it‘s much more striking. Of course many people think there are some lawsuit which are so brutal or horrifying that the murderer „must“ be killed, because it‘s not fair that he has any rights to live. The problem is, that often the murderer wants to be executed, because of his actions. So is it then punishment or deliverance for him? The protection from...
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...Should Death Penalty be abolished in America? Death penalty, or capital punishment, the most severe punishment for criminals, has been in the punishment system in countries all over the world for thousands of years. The history of death penalty is almost as long as the history of human beings. Death penalty was once considered as natural as life itself. It was usually applied to those criminals who had conducted grave crimes and no one would feel pity for the criminals in the past. However, with the development of human beings, different voices about death penalty appear more and more often. Some people argue that in modern society where life is highly valued, death penalty that deprives of a person’s life would be too cruel. Therefore, campaigns are launched for the purpose of abolishing death penalty. However, there are still some other people who firmly support death penalty. As a result, in today’s society, death penalty has become an extremely controversial issue, both sides of which have its own supporters and reasons. This paper explores to the different sides of death penalty, to find whether death penalty is necessary or not in today’s world. In the coin of death penalty, side A stands the firmly supporters of death penalty, claiming that death penalty is a cruel necessity in today’s world. A latest Gallup poll shows that 64% of the Americans support death penalty and 29% oppose it. For especially atrocious crimes, the support rate rises to 80% (Jones, Jeffrey M)....
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...The Death Penalty: We Do Not Need It The death penalty has been one of the most controversial debates throughout history. It has been drawing more and more attention in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976. In my point of view, death penalty is a violent and brutal act that is against human moral principles and does little good for the country. Therefore, it should definitely be abolished, especially in this highly civilized society. No one can deny the fact that, the death penalty is a brutal action of killing, regardless of what way people carry it out. In a sense of morality, there is not much difference between a society killing a criminal and a criminal killing an ordinary people. They are both violent acts that turn a human being into a corpse. People are created for being loved, helped and saved, not destroyed. “Thou shalt not kill,” the commandant sets out the basic respect toward people’s life. Neither any individual nor any group of people, which included a country and a society, has the right to decide if a person should live or die. The death penalty, with no doubt, is an action that disregards this most fundamental right of human beings. It is wrong enough for criminals to commit homicides; it makes even less sense to kill criminals for the killings. It can not bring back the lives of those who already died. The only thing it does is to destroy one more life and make more people- the families of the criminals- suffer the pain from...
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...shot in their heads while sleeping. The gunman was eventually found and was convicted and sentenced to death. Tiequon Cox is still alive three decades later along with 750 other murderers whose executions are dragged by endless litigation process and political opposition. Alexander now 74 years old, decided he would take matters into his own hands and filed a law suit demanding the state to place an execution protocol and have Tiequon Cox put under lethal injection. The superior Court ruled that he had a standing to bring the action making ways for hearing. California is the state with the highest number of death row inmates. In December of 2006, a federal court proclaimed that the states three drug lethal injection was cruel. California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation despite their best efforts have not been able to execute...
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...States of America, death penalty has been used as far back as the eighteenth century B.C. This was under the rule of King Hammaurabi of Babylon ruled, who codified the death penalty for twenty-five different types of crimes. Within the US, there are 32 states who employ death penalty, and only 18 who don’t. Death penalty has been an ordinary way to deal with extreme criminals in order to end their crimes, for a longer time. Capital punishment has for long been a component of the government. In American history, there have been numerous methods of capital punishment. Everything from electrocution, hanging, firing squad to beheading, and even gas chambers. Capital punishment has always been a brutal and unnatural thing. Luckily, lethal injection is what most states use today. They have done since post-Gregg (Gregg v. Georgia), but electrocution, gas chambers and hanging are still practiced as well. One large motive for supporting capital punishment is economy. It is much cheaper to have someone executed than having him or her imprisoned. This is, though, extraordinarily inhuman. What about the family and friends of the executed? This is where the ethical aspect begins to play a role. The government needs to think about whether this should be accepted as being ethically correct. Because of the ethical aspects, capital punishment is one of the few massively discussed subjects in American politics. In the southern states, especially in Texas, death penalty has been the most...
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...punishment also known as the death penalty is the process by which convicted criminals are executed by the federal government. The death penalty has always been part of human history; there is archaeological evidence that proves executions were practiced as early as the 8th century BCE. The first execution in the American colonies took place in Virginia in 1608 when George Kendall was accused of espionage. By 1612, many colonies approved the method of execution by hanging or firing squad; the executions were made public in an effort to increase fear of committing a crime (Issitt, Micha L.Newton, Heather). Executions were abolished in 1972, by the Supreme Court during the Furman v. Georgia. The court ruled that death sentences are handed down arbitrarily, violating the 18th amendment of the U.S. constitution and where “cruel and unusual” (Farley Matchett). The United States did not perform any capital punishments for five years. Then, in 1976 the death penalty was reinstated and Gary Gilmore was the first person to be executed after this hiatus (Issitt, Micha L.Newton, Heather). In a modern society that values life, righteousness and justice, the United States is still part of a decreasing number of countries that still use this sort of punishment. The death penalty is a highly debatable topic since it makes it hard for an observer to pick a side, because for every point there is a counterpoint. From where I stand, after making extensive research, the death penalty has; killed innocent...
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...International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 and its protocol in 1989 where the State parties believed that abolition of death penalty should be in the scale of enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights and recalling Article 3 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on 10th December, 1948 as well as Article 21 of our Constitution.1 It can be judicially said “I don’t punish you for killing the man but so that the other cannot be killed.” That is, the chief aim of capital punishment is to make deterrent to others for same crime . Now this concept is having a new direction. The Supreme Court and High Courts in India interpret the cases before giving the death sentence as rarest of rare cases. The Court moves its eye also for other aspects of society. The landmark cases where death sentences were awarded in India are Ranga Billa case2, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi Assassination case, Laxman Nayak case 3 and the lastly, it was awarded to Dhananjoy Chatterjee on 14th August, 2004 in connection with Hetal Parikh case of West Bengal after the Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence awarded by lower courts and President also refused to grant him pardon. In the year 2003, Government laid a bill in the Parliament which proposed to add a provision of the punishment, like death sentence in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act as also it was |LL.B. Entrance Examination, Universal Law Publishing Co., New Delhi (2007), ...
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...this case, the state has the responsibility and the legal authority to punish the criminal or groups of criminals based on the given law. The punishment of the criminals may vary from simple fines and imprisonment to sever torture and the deprivation of life. Capital punishment or the death penalty has existed as part of the human justice system since ancient times. In these earlier periods people were sentenced to death as a punishment for crimes considered as first degree offenses by the state. These crimes were most of the time political as well as religious and the method of execution, in addition to different brutal ways, was mainly beheading. With additional types of crimes resulting in capital punishment and more sophisticated methods of execution, the death penalty has continued to be practiced in the 21st century. However, capital punishment, especially after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, has became an issue of greater debate among states, human right organizations and other nongovernmental organizations. Since 1948, the number of countries employing death penalty is decreasing and currently nearly half of the states in our world have abandoned the death penalty for all kinds of crimes. This paper will focus on presenting the diverging views regarding capital punishment mainly from a human right perspective. The study then tries to present facts, figures, and tries to look in brief the move towards its universal abolition. As far as the methods...
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...DEATH PENALTY ARGUMENTS: Deterrent or Revenge (Pros and Cons) INTRODUCTION What is Capital punishment? Capital punishment is the death penalty. It is used today and was used in ancient times to punish a variety of offenses. Even the bible advocates death for murder and other crimes like kidnapping and witchcraft. When the word death penalty is used, it makes yelling and screaming from both sides of extremist. One side may say deterrence, while the other side may say, but you may execute an innocent man. Today, one of the most debated issues in the Criminal Justice System is the issue of capital punishment or the death penalty. Capital punishment was legal until 1972, when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia stating that it violated the Eight and Fourteen Amendments citing cruel and unusual punishment. However, in 1976, the Supreme Court reversed itself with Gregg v. Georgia and reinstated the death penalty but not all states have the death penalty. Thirteen states do not have the death penalty: Alaska, District of Colombia, Hawaii, Iowa, Main, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY (CONS) Death Penalty Fails to Rehabilitate What would it accomplish to put someone on death row? The victim is already dead-you cannot bring him back. When the opponents...
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...The Death Penalty- A Divided Country Leonardo A. Davila BCOM-275 August 22, 2011 Michelle Dougherty The Death Penalty- A Divided Country The issue with the death penalty, like abortion, deeply divides this country. Death penalty laws differ from country to another country. In some countries an individual can be to the death penalty for murdering or rape, whereas in other countries the same punishment can be sentenced when one, is convicted for corruption or less serious crimes. The death penalty has been a topic of debates and rebuttal for decades, although several countries still use death penalty as the most severe kind of punishment, the majority of countries around the world have abolished this type of punishment. Here in the United States if one utters the word capital punishment or death penalty and various aspects related to it, one will see people’s reactions and heated arguments flying think and fast. For some people the death penalty is a morally acceptable punishment for murder, and believes it is morally wrong not to sentence a murder to the death penalty because punishment must fit the crime. Just by putting a murder in jail does not equate to taking someone’s life. Some will think and argue that the death penalty is unconstitutional and cruel Martin O’Malley wrote an article in the Washington Post as to why he opposes the death penalty. He questions if the death penalty is a just punishment for murder and if the death penalty is an effective deterrent for...
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...then stuffed the body back in his trunk and drove home to his wife. Now he sits on death row, where he belongs. If the death penalty were to be abolished, this man, this brutal and horrid human being would be allowed to live in a prison where he is feed three times a day, enjoying luxuries that many innocent people in America cannot afford. It is also possible that he could be sentenced to 15-20 years in prison and then set free. Answer me this one simple question, would you want this man living in your neighborhood. As history tells us, capital punishment, whose definition is "the use of death as a legally sanctioned punishment," is an acceptable and efficient means of deterring crimes such as the one committed by David Brewer and many others. Today, the death penalty remains an effective method of punishment for murder and other heinous crimes. One cannot escape the fact that the death penalty has many flaws. But if you think about it there are flaws in all forms of penalties for crime. Weather the issue of the cost and time in order to carry out a “Death Sentence”, or the fact that many innocent people could be killed for something that they didn’t commit. Some will argue and say things like the death penalty is immoral. It is a form of cruel and unusual punishment and people greatly suffer both emotionally and physically before their execution. Most of the time, the death penalty is...
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...Reimplementation of Death Penalty in the Philippines On February 4 in Pangasinan, President Aquino viewed the mutilated bodies of two little girls who were raped before murdered. According to the presidential aide, a visibly moved president asked Rex Nobleza, the children’s father if what can the government do for him. The poor man’s response was what if the government re impose the death penalty. In our society today where criminals are not afraid to go to jail, because they know that the capital punishment was abolished. Criminals that do heinous crimes, because they know after few years in jail they will commit freedom once again. Criminals that are selfish, they do not know the negative side effects of the sins that they have done...
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