The death penalty is a source of divided opinion and controversy. Capital punishment is the most severe penalty in the US Judicial system. The death penalty is given for the most brutal crimes committed .People have been sentenced to death for many reasons. In America, 2 out of every 3 people support the death penalty. One of the functions of the criminal justice system is to administer a fair and just punishment for the crime committed by the suspect .Most Americans seem to agree with or oppose capital punishment on a case by case basis.
However, the death penalty may kill innocent people who are wrongly sentenced to a crime they did not commit. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, 138 innocent men and women have been released from death row, including some who were within minutes of being executed. In some states, such as Texas, Missouri, and Virginia, investigations have been opened to determine if they had killed innocent men and women. One of the most frequent causes of reversals in death penalty cases is that poor defense lawyers are provided. A study at Columbia University found that 68% of all death penalty cases were reversed on appeal, with an inadequate defense as one of the main reasons for reversal.
In fact, the state of Texas has a reputation known for enforcing the death penalty. However, in all of the years mankind knowing of such barbaric punishment, can one actually say that it is just and applied fairly? Despite the fact that the death penalty may seem like justice, the death penalty is a barbaric act that is not applied fairly and is unjust to mankind because there have been innocent people convicted of crimes that they did not commit. Certain factors such as race, location, and money play a large part on how unjust and fair the death penalty is applied. The death penalty is a barbaric action that is unjust and applied unfairly to mankind because although half of the homicide victims are people of color, more than 80 percent of the prisoners executed were convicted of killing whites.
“Why do we kill people, who kill people, to show that killing people is wrong”. Fair enough as it might seem, but what is the ground for the opposition to the death penalty? It is asserted that death penalty is unjust, Tax Payer waste too much money, and it is a breech of biblical principles in our society. In the U.S. in 2010, 129 people on death row have been released with proof that they were wrongfully convicted.DNA, available have justify most of these convictions. I can’t guarantee we won’t execute innocent people.
In the year of 1921, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were convicted of robbery and murder. Although the arguments brought against them were mostly disproven in court, the fact that the two men were known radicals, prejudiced the judge and jury against them. It didn’t help that their trial took place during the height of the Red Scare. On April 9, 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti's final appeal was declined, and the two were sentenced to death. The most prominent and respectable critic of the trial was known to be Felix Frankfurter, a professor at Harvard Law School.
The Eighth Amendment and Capital Punishment The death penalty is the most severe penalty in the United States judicial system. It is administered only for the most brutal of crimes. Three out of every four Americans are in favor of the death penalty. Opponents believe that the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Because the death penalty causes such a heated debate among interested individuals, politicians often use the conflict to acquire public support.
Here are the statics: “Since 1989 when the first DNA exoneration occurred, 328 defendants have been exonerated in the United States after being convicted of serious crimes such as rape and murder. The exonerated were 316 men and 12 women; 145 of them were cleared by DNA identification and 183 by other kinds of evidence” (http://www.ur.umich.edu/0304/May10_04/25.shtml). What went wrong? * Eyewitness Misidentification * Improper Forensic Science * False Confessions * Overzealousness/Public Pressure Eyewitness Misidentification Imagine being a victim so frighten and traumatized after such a hideous unimaginable experience. It can be hard, almost impossible to accurately describe the assailant.
Mia Michael H.English Mrs. Gaskill April 23, 2013 An argument that never seems to have a clear winner is “Life in Prison” vs. “The Death Penalty”. Although both sides have valid points, I feel that only one should be allowed. The death penalty is inhumane and unethical. It seems hypocritical for us, the American people, and are judicial system to say that murder is wrong and illegal, but continue to murder both the guilty and thee wrongfully accused. The death penalty gives those that are actually guilty the easy way out of punishment, and the innocent a wrongful death.
Alysa Torino Hanley English 1/ Period 4 April 3, 2013 Should Mentally Ill Individual be Convicted in Court? Many people believe that if someone is mentally ill, then they cannot be executed for their crimes. This is not true; and individual suffering from a mental illness can be sentenced to death in the United States today. Many seriously mentally ill individuals are set on Death Row in the United States. Yet, why does one get away with it and another does not?
Capital Punishment and the Deterrence Theory Capital Punishment Deters Crime 11/9/2012 Dr. Ji Seun Sohn Brooke Lee Capital Punishment and the Deterrence Theory: Capital Punishment Deters Crime Jerry Kilgore said in an editorial written for USA Today, “As a former prosecutor, former secretary of public safety and now attorney general, I believe that some crimes are so evil, some criminals so dangerous and some victims so tortured that executing the criminal is appropriate” (Kilgore, 2002). Capital punishment, or commonly referred to as the death penalty, is the most controversial of all of the disciplinary practices. Since it involves taking another human being’s life, this is not at all surprising. Since it is the most severe of all sentences, there have been countless efforts to abolish the death penalty, and in most of the industrialized nations, with the exception of Japan and the United States of America, these efforts have proved effective. In this paper, I will discuss the effect that capital punishment has on deterring criminal activity.