Death Penalty In The United States

Crimes are committed at both a state and federal level. While the death penalty under the federal law is commonly used, some states do not allow the use of capital punishment. Based on the level of crime enacted, the punishment for that said crime can come in several variations. Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the termination of the accused life as mandated by a court of law in that state for which the crime was committed (www.deathpenalty.procon.org). Over the years, several death methods have been utilized while others have been altered because the use of capital punishment has been abolished or there has been an advance in technology. The death penalty is considered an issue to some Americans because many do

not believe that any human has the right to take the life of another human no matter how severe the offense was. The Constitutional Amendment #8, found in the Bill of Rights, was proposed by the First Congress to abolish all capital punishment in the United States. According to the Constitutional Amendment #8, the death penalty is a human rights violation as well as being non-effective in suppressing crimes (www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com). If a person commits a heinous act, they should face the harshest penalty the state or federal government has which is capital punishment.
Since the early colonial times, the death penalty has not only been a form of punishment in America but also in parts all over the world. In the Eighteenth Century B.C., the first death penalty law was established codifying it for about twentyfive different crimes. These sentences were carried out by drowning, beating (to death), and burning alive (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). Capital punishment was influenced mostly by England. It was practiced by settlers coming into the new world. British crimes rose dramatically over hundreds of years. Captain George Kendall was the first recorded death sentence in the United States occurring in Jamestown, Virginia. In 1608 he was convicted of spying for the Spanish government and executed by a firing squad (www.archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com). In 1887 and 1846, the states of Maine and Michigan both abolished the death penalty because the people became disgusted by the idea of eliminating people. The United States in the 1900s, had continued to follow this penalty but some methods have been changed by using the electric chair and lethal injection. Some nations supported capital punishment while others did not. The United States was one nation who attempted to limit the penalty. Because of this, executions dropped from 1,200 in the 1940s to 700 in the 1950s. Approximately 42% of citizens who lived in the supported nations subsidized the punishment (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). Capital punishment was a penalty that has been used drastically over the years ending thousands of people’s lives.
In the United States, use of the death penalty faced many legal challenges.

By the 1960s, the use of capital punishment slowed when the Supreme Court noticed that the Eighth Amendment showed the penalty was unconstitutional. This encouraged defendants to try and not be sentenced on death row. The court stated that the penalty is “cruel and unusual” especially if a misdemeanor (not too severe crime) called for a death sentence. The Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments were violated by the death penalty. They each stated that humans have their own rights and should not be held accounted for punishments. They have the right of “life, liberty, and property, without due process of law” (www.deathpenalty.procon.org). However, on June 29th, 1972, approximately forty death row sentences were voided after the Furman vs. Georgia case which dealt with the administrative law. In this case, Furman was sentenced to the death penalty because of murder. He claimed that he was not getting the rights said in the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments therefore violating them. As a result, the Supreme court overturned his execution. This case led to the halt of capital punishment in 1976 ruling it to be illegal within the United States (www.lawenforcementtoday.com). It was then chosen that death row inmates should be sentenced to life in prison without

parole.
Before inmates were sentenced to only life in prison without parole, approximately every state used capital punishment. In the Gregg vs. Georgia case, a defendant Troy Leon Gregg, was given the death sentence after he was accused of being guilty of armed robbery and murder. He was known as the first person in history of the United States whose sentence was accepted by the Supreme Court. His sentence was infact constitutional due to the fact that he was sentenced through a formal Judicial hearing. This eventually reintroduced the death penalty back into the United States making it legal for Gregg to lose his life. The night before his scheduled execution, he escaped. Even though capital punishment was back on track, some states did not agree to the penalty and abolished the idea (www.oyez.org).
Over the years, nations have eventually abolished capital punishment. As of 2013, approximately 140 countries around the world got rid of the death penalty while twenty-two others still remain with the penalty. The top countries that use capital punishment the most are Pakistan, Iraq, and China. Pakistan is one country that is currently using the penalty today. Their methods of ending a life consist of execution by fire squad and hanging. Since 2005, there has been over 255 executions and currently thousands of people who are on death row in Pakistan. Also, there has been only seven overturned death sentences meaning that they are very strict and enforce capital punishment. In Pakistan, terrorism, murder, rape, and kidnapping are some crimes that result in death sentencing (www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org). Iraq was another nation with a high death penalty rate and currently number three on the top counties who executes the most people. In 2003, the death penalty was suspended after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Eventually in 2004, it was reintroduced for crimes such as rape, kidnapping, homicide, and drug-trafficking. At least 1,029 people were sentenced to death and almost 200 were executed in 2007. Also in 2009, Iraq sentenced more people to death than any other country (besides China) (www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org). Lastly, the global leader having the highest number of executions is China. The nation has executed about 1,718 people in 2008. It has been reported that China has taken the lives of more people than the rest of the world together. Their methods of execution include lethal injection and shooting. The current number of deaths is a secret. All the world knows is that prisoners do not stay for long on death row, they are normally immediately executed (www.csmonitor.com). Nations all over the world are controversial about if they consider the penalty something they want to use or not. However, several states today are still using the death penalty.
The overall disputation between using the death penalty or not is depended on between the states.

Currently, there are thirty-two states still using capital punishment. The United States is the only country in the Americas to execute people with rates approaching 1,300 since 1976. Their method of execution consists of lethal injection, electrocution (electric chair), and the gas chamber (www.deathpenalty.procon.org). Over the years, a variety of races have been sentenced to death. About 43% White, 42% Black, 13% Hispanic and 2% other are currently on death row. Texas, Alabama, Ohio, and Virginia are the states with the highest execution rates. Overall in the United States, 39% of citizens believe that the accused should have life without parole as well as having restrictions, 9% said they should have life with parole, 13% without parole, 33% support the death penalty, and 6% have no opinion (www.clarkprosecutor.org). In the United States, the death penalty consists of different standards between the Federal and State governments. The States primarily chose if they want to have the option of using capital punishments on their people, not the Federal government. However, the Federal government does have their own death penalty which is used to attain sentences where the death sentence is not used. Federal death penalties are mostly used under that circumstance and therefore isn’t used much because majority of the states have the punishment. More than 98% of people are

imprisoned on death row under the state law. Because the legislature is responsible for the people, the States mostly handle their state crimes. If this set up was different and it was just the Federal government dealing with the penalty, the penalty system would have to become a law and would need majority vote of the United State population rather than each individual state population (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). As of July 2014, California is the top state for having the most death row inmates. Because of this, they have a very high cost for executing people. Since 1978, just California has totaled over $4 billion between trial cost, appeals, and imprisonment. Other countries such as Maryland have costed the United States approximately $3 million. For a Federal death case, the average cost of one trial is about $600,000 with only a 44% chance of actually being presented with a death sentence (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). Over time if the capital punishment in states start to diminish, the federal state would have more trials increasing the money being spent on.
As of July 1st, 2014, 3,049 citizens in total the United States have been convicted with the death penalty. Currently, there are sixty-two people all over the country waiting see if they are going to be sentenced or not. There was originally seventy-four defendants but nine have been officially removed and three who have already been executed (www.clarkprosecutor.org). Azibo Aquart is a black man who was convicted in 2012 in Connecticut. He supposively was involved in the drug business by a leader of a Jamaican drug gang killing three rivals. Kenneth Eugene Barrett is a white man who is on death row since being convicted in Oklahoma in 2005. It was said that during a drug crime, he murdered a state police officer. Edgar Garcia is another man who was charged of wounding and stabbing two correction officers and murdering an inmate. He is Latino who was convicted in Texas in 2010. Other men such as Carlos Carlo, Mark Snarr, and Thomas Hager are all waiting to see if they will be executed (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). Even though people are on death row, it does not mean that all of them have actually committed the crime they are charged for. Some of them could be completely innocent and can be taking their own life for someone elses.
As the use of the death penalty continued, debate continued as to the use was a good idea or not. Several inmates who were on death row were exonerated (free from their sentence) because of this issue. Each year in the United States, there are approximately thirtysix people who are put to death mostly by lethal injection. California, Florida, and Texas are the states who currently have the most death row inmates (www.clarkprosecutor.org). Gordon “Randy” Steidl was a man convicted in 1987 in Illinois and eventually released May 28th, 2004. He was wrongly convicted for two murders in 1986 spending seventeen years in prison on death row. When he was convicted, the Illinois police messed up the investigation therefore charging the wrong person of murder. In 1999, an appeals court reduced his sentencing from being on death row to having life in prison without parole. Eventually, he was ordered a new trial in 2003 where a judge named Michael McCuskey overturned Steidl’s sentence finally finding out he was innocent. Glenn Ford was another man who was convicted in Louisiana in 1984 and dismissed recently in 2014. He was freed after his sentence was vacated. Ford was convicted of being involved in armed robbery and murder. Prosecutors realized that he “was neither present at, nor a participant in, the robbery or murder.” In total, he spent thirty years on Louisiana’s death row waiting to be released (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). Others in different states have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. This means that people could have been killed out of innocence leading to debate between if capital punishment should be used.
The Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment is a bill proposed by Mr. Boehner, the Speaker of the House incharge of the House of Representatives, who sponsored this Amendment to “Abolish Capital Punishment in the United States.” An Amendment must be ratified by the Congress by two-thirds majority vote in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in order for it to be passed. According to the Amendment, capital punishment is considered a human rights violation and is not very effective in dissuading crimes. The death penalty is said to be very costly with their methods of using lethal injection as well as the electric chair and can take away the lives of innocent human beings. As stated in bill #18, a result of this amendment would be to abolish the penalty and sentence inmates on death row to life in prison without parole. A person who commits a reprehensible act deserves to be disciplined and should receive the death penalty.
If a murder is committed in the first degree and and has taken a life, they should give theirs. Known as an “Eye for an eye,” the violence in society is greatly disturbed unbalancing justice. To balance out justice, a murderer should have his life taken away because murdering is a gruesome crime that needs to be stopped. If this happened, people would think about what they are doing and not commit the crime. For crimes such as first degree, the worst punishment should be enacted on under our system of law so murders get what they deserve which is capital punishment. An act less than the death penalty would weaken the society on helping to protect people’s lives (www.customasapblog.com). In the Cheshire, Connecticut home invasion, a killer named Steven Hayes was convicted of killing three people, a woman, Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley and Michaela. His partner in crime, Joshua Komisarjevsky, followed the woman and her daughters home from a grocery store on July 23, 2007 to convict a robbery. In the end, the men ended up raping Michaela and Jennifer, strangling Jennifer, covering the home with gasoline, and lit the house on fire killing the daughters. The father, Dr. William Petit Jr. was tied up in the basement but managed to escape before the fire lit. Both Steven and Joshua are on death row for the crime they committed in Cheshire. They were sentenced to die by lethal injection in 2012 but ended up appealing their case pushing the date back (www.nydailynews.com). A person who is convicted of killing one or more people should take their own life in the death penalty.
Capital punishment was not only used to get rid of people who deserve to lose a life, it was also used to try and deter murder and other types of crimes. To discourage criminals from committing a crime, society has used punishments such as putting them in jail or giving them a fine. The strongest punishment, the death penalty, would make criminals think twice before committing a crime by being in fear of losing their own life. It has been shown from 1996-2012, states with the death penalty tend to have lower murder rates than the states without the penalty. States such as Illinois, Michigan, and New Mexico who abolished the death penalty have high murder rates compared to other states like Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming who are currently using capital punishment. Illinois's murder rate as of 2012 is 5.8 while Idaho only had a rate of 1.8. Michigan’s murder rate is 7.0 while Wyoming is only 2.4 and New Mexico’s rate is 5.6 while Colorado is only 3.1 (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). These statistics show that by having the death penalty, murder rates decrease.
After a crime was convicted and a person or persons were murdered, not only that person murdered was affected but also their families. After the victim is murdered, their family cannot go back to the way they were. They seek closure to once again be in peace. Capital punishment provides a sense of comfort to ensure that the murderer would never harm anymore victims. The families seek revenge in making the criminal pay the price by being sentenced to death. The criminal has taken away a loved one from their family. Execution of the convicted criminal helps people get a relief and evenness feeling. In 2010, a woman and two children were stabbed to death on Thanksgiving day by Caron E. Montgomery. Friends and family were determined to sentence the killer to death to receive closure and revenge. They rather have him take his life than being sentenced to life in prison. One of the family members said she felt “Comforted to know that he will be put to death.” The family especially wanted him to be on death row because the victims have been stabbed in the throat multiple times. On May 8, 2010, the court declared that Montgomery should receive the death penalty for killing more than two people. He is still currently on death row (www.dispatch.com). Capital punishment helps families get closure from deaths murderers have committed impacting their lives.
By using the death penalty, innocent lives and families can be saved. Murderers who are not sentenced to death and only put in prison for life could possibly murder another person either if they are released or even remaining in prison. Because of this risk, they should receive the ultimate punishment of the death penalty. The government needs to create stricter laws to enforce that crimes are bad and if done can and will receive harsh punishments. With these laws, people can feel safer knowing that convicted murders would be taken care of and do not need to be worried about again. Life is sacred and for people who give up someone else’s life should give up their own. The laws today are too lenient and several states are abolishing capital punishment. Because of this, criminals can escape from jail within approximately ten years; basically getting away with it. They are most likely to continue to murder because they do not have to worry about being killed themselves. Several families have lost a loved one through murder. Enforcing the death penalty can help stop criminals from convicting a fatal crime.