Capital Punishment: The social, Moral, and Historical Aspects of This Controversial Topic

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Recommended: Capital punishment from an ethical view

Capital punishment is seen as the act of killing an individual as a form punishment given to a particular crime. The act is carried out by a lawful hearing in a court of law. Capital punishment applies to cases of murder, but some countries apply capital punishment for fraud, adultery, and treason against the crown. Its use varies in many countries worldwide. Those who use capital punishment often justify their actions with the argument that such harsh punishments will deter prospective murderers from commit the act of murder.
The use of capital punishment goes back “to early English common law, where virtually any person convicted of a felony offence faced a mandatory death sentence, but the practice has always been much more widespread in the [United States, rather] than in the United Kingdom, which abandoned capital punishment in 1973” (Marcus 2007). In 1896 America’s first serial killer, Herman Webster Mudgett’s was executed because he operated a hotel that he called the “Murder Castle,” and entice women, through sexual relationships, to take out life insurance policies with him as the primary beneficiary. Once he had them involved, he tortured and killed them, dissected their bodies, and sold the skeletal remains to medical schools for research. Mudgett confessed to twenty-seven murders, but it could have been more, he was tried and hanged.
In such a case, one could readily identify with the ultimate punishment of death as it relates to the inhumane way he took the lives of innocent victims. His sadistic and premeditated actions placed the rest of the society in fear that anyone could be the next victim. By law, the government is bound by law to protect the safety of all its citizens. With the likes of Mudgett on the stre...

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... (2011), Capital Punishment from Moral Issues that Divide Us https://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/160/7-cap-pun.htm Accessed: April 21, 2014
3. Lair, Kevin, (2013) The Elm - Death Penalty Debate: Columnists Respond – The Death Penalty Saves Lives, Go Figure http://elm.washcoll.edu/index.php/2013/04 Accessed: April 21, 2014
4. Marcus, Paul, (2007) “Capital Punishment in the United States and Beyond”, Faculty Publications,, Paper 61. http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/61
5. The Death Penalty – High School Curriculum – Arguments for and Against The Death Penalty(2000) http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/
6. Warden, Rob, (2009) Reflections on Capital Punishment, 4 Nw.J.L.& Soc. Pol’y.329 http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njlsp/iss2/2
7. Arguments against capital punishment http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/against_1 Accessed: April 21, 2014

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