Capital Punishment Essay: Just Say No

Capital Punishment: Just Say No

This essay will show that the United States is on an execution rampage. Since capital punishment was reinstated by the Supreme Court in the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia decision(Gregg), more than 525 men and women have been put to death by the state. More than 150 of these executions have taken place since 1996. 3,500 people are on death row today, awaiting their turn with the executioner. Capital punishment has existed throughout most of the course of our nation's history.

By the mid-1960s, however, public opposition to the death penalty had reached an all-time high, and the practice was banned by the Supreme Court in the 1972 Furman v. Georgia(Furman) decision. The Court held that state death penalty statutes were devoid of any standards, and that they therefore gave too much discretion to individual judges and juries to exact the ultimate punishment. Soon after the Furman decision, states began passing new laws that provided sentencing guidelines for juries. The Supreme Court was given another opportunity to address the issue of capital punishment in 1976, in Gregg v. Georgia, and it ruled that "the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution." Since this ruling, capital punishment rates have grown exponentially in the United States.

In 1994, the Federal Death Penalty Act(Federal) authorized capital punishment for more than 60 offenses, including some crimes that do not involve murder. Moreover, the 1996 Anti- Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act created new barriers to effective federal review of constitutional claims in capital cases. Congress and many states have also slashed funding for most of the legal representation death row inmates forme...

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... only two. Southern states, particularly Texas (443 death row inmates in 1999), hand down significantly more death sentences than those in the rest of the country. California, the state with the largest penal system, had 513 inmates on death row in the spring of 1999. Such state-to-state disparities exist because death penalty statutes are a patchwork of disparate standards, rules and practices and the consequence is the difference between life and death. Furthermore, some prosecutors are more zealous in seeking the death penalty than others - particularly if they are running for re-election.

WORKS CITED:

Federal Death Penalty Act http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/feddp.html

Furman v Goergia http://www.thinkquest.org/library/lib/site_sum_outside.html?tname=2760&url=2760/furman.htm

Gregg v. Georgia http://www.lectlaw.com/files/case26.htm