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Example research essay topic: Eye For An Eye Tooth For A Tooth - 1,557 words

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Death Penalty According to the most recent figures assembled by Amnesty International, more than half the countries in the world no longer use the death penalty. The international human rights organization, which opposes the death penalty, regularly gathers and publishes data on its status and use throughout the world. In February 1999, the division between abolitionist and retention ist countries was as follows: 67 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes; 14 countries have abolished it for all but exceptional crimes such as certain offenses committed during time of war; 23 countries can be considered to be abolitionist de facto, because although they retain the death penalty in law, they have not carried out executions for the past ten years or more; 91 countries retain and use the death penalty (Amnesty International). The death penalty has a long history in the US. Britain influenced Americas use of the death penalty more than any other country. When European settlers came to the new world, they brought the practice of capital punishment.

The first recorded execution in the new colonies was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. Kendall was executed for being a spy for Spain. In 1612, Virginia Governor Sir Thomas Dale enacted the Divine, Moral and Martial Laws, which provided the death penalty for even minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens, and trading with Indians (Bedau). Laws regarding the death penalty varied from colony to colony. The Massachusetts Bay Colony held its first execution in 1630, even though the Capital Laws of New England did not go into effect until years later. The New York Colony instituted the Dukes Laws of 1665.

Under these laws, offenses such as striking ones mother or father, or denying the true God, were punishable by death. (Randa, 1997) Also influenced was Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and founder of the Pennsylvania Prison Society. Rush challenged the belief that the death penalty serves as a deterrent. In fact, Rush was an early believer in the brutalization effect. He held that having a death penalty actually increased criminal conduct. Rush gained the support of Benjamin Franklin and Philadelphia Attorney General William Bradford.

Bradford, who would later become the U. S. Attorney General, led Pennsylvania to become the first state to consider degrees of murder based on culpability. In 1794, Pennsylvania repealed the death penalty for all offenses except first degree murder. (Bohm, 1999; Randa, 1997; and Schabas, 1997) In 1846, Michigan became the first state to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except treason. Later, Rhode Island and Wisconsin abolished the death penalty for all crimes. By the end of the century, the world would see the countries of Venezuela, Portugal, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Brazil and Ecuador follow suit. (Bohm, 1999 and Schabas, 1997).

Although some U. S. states began abolishing the death penalty, most states held onto capital punishment. Some states made more crimes capital offenses, especially for offenses committed by slaves. With the exception of a small number of rarely committed crimes in a few jurisdictions, all mandatory capital punishment laws had been abolished by 1963. (Bohm, 1999) The electric chair was introduced at the end of the century. New York built the first electric chair in 1888, and in 1890 executed William Kemmler.

Soon, other states adopted this execution method. (Randa, 1997) In 1924, the use of cyanide gas was introduced, as Nevada sought a more humane way of executing its inmates. Gee Jon was the first person executed by lethal gas. The state tried to pump cyanide gas into Jons cell while he slept, but this proved impossible, and the gas chamber was constructed. (Bohm, 1999) From the 1920 s to the 1940 s, there was a resurgence in the use of the death penalty. This was due, in part, to the writings of criminologists, who argued that the death penalty was a necessary social measure.

In the United States, Americans were suffering through Prohibition and the Great Depression. There were more executions in the 1930 s than in any other decade in American history, an average of 167 per year. (Bohm, 1999 and Schabas, 1997) In the 1950 s, public sentiment began to turn away from capital punishment. Many allied nations either abolished or limited the death penalty, and in the U. S. , the number of executions dropped dramatically. Whereas there were 1, 289 executions in the 1940 s, there were 715 in the 1950 s, and the number fell even further, to only 191, from 1960 to 1976. In 1966, support for capital punishment reached an all-time low.

A Gallup poll showed support for the death penalty at only 42 %. (Bohm, 1999 and BJS, 1997) The 1960 s brought challenges to the fundamental legality of the death penalty. Before then, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960 s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. In 1958, the Supreme Court had decided in Trop v. Dulles (356 U. S. 86), that the Eighth Amendment contained an evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society. (Bohm, 1999) Presently, in the U.

S. system, the states possess the primary responsibility for defining crimes and enforcing criminal law. The federal government provides basic rules, including rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, but each state chooses its own criminal penalties. This basic arrangement holds for the death penalty as well. Both law and practice regarding the death penalty vary widely in the 50 states. Twelve states do not have a death penalty.

The most serious form of punishment in such states is life imprisonment, sometimes without the possibility of parole. The other 38 states all provide that some forms of aggravated murder can be punished with death. Several states also authorize capital punishment for the nonlethal offenses of drug trafficking, hijacking, treason, and sexual assault. However, in 1999 all persons under sentence of death in the United States had been convicted of some form of murder. The Christian ethics point of view on the death penalty is also a very important one for many people, when they make their judgment about this issue. All systems of criminal justice, both ancient as well as modern, contain in themselves certain aspects of the principle of retribution as the basis for punishing the premeditated, violent taking of the life of another (Schabas).

The Old Testament expresses this idea in the phrase an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (Leviticus 24: 20). From this Old Testament principle one may arrive at the inescapable conclusion expressed in the book of Exodus: He that smith a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death (Exodus 21: 12). The early Church, however, was opposed to the death penalty and based its opposition on the teaching of Jesus Christ. This teaching is expressed with the utmost clarity in the words of the Savior: You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say into you, That you resist not evil... love your enemies, bless them that curse you (Matthew 5: 38 - 39, 44). Many Christians began to accept the death penalty as permissible for the sake of justice, and for the sake of law and order that might prevent violence.

Of course, Christians never looked on the death penalty as something ideal or desirable but as an unavoidable evil in a world far from ideal (Schabas). Even if human logic can justify the death, all the same, the penalty is incompatible with the injunction of the Sixth Commandment You shall not kill. Laws and customs must be more and more imbued with Gods Laws. Judicial penalties must strive to awaken the conscience of the criminal. There is power in the spirit of mercy. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Whether one is for or against the death penalty, it is hard to argue that it does not need a fresh look. From Americas earliest days, when Benjamin Franklin helped develop the notion of degrees of culpability for murder, this country has been willing to reassess its assumptions about justice. If people are going to keep the death penalty, the public seems to be saying, lets be sure we are doing it right. But if, over time, the society cannot do it right, then it must ask itself if it is worth doing at all.

Sources: Amnesty International, "List of Abolitionist and Retentionist Countries, " Report ACT 50 / 01 / 99, April 1999 Bible, The New International Version R. Bohm, "Death quest: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Capital Punishment in the United States, " Anderson Publishing, 1999. H. Bedau, "The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies, " Oxford University Press, 1997. K. O'Shea, "Women and the Death Penalty in the United States, 1900 - 1998, " Praeger 1999.

W. Schabas "Death Penalty, the Christian Perspective, " Cambridge University Press, second edition, 1997. "Society's Final Solution: A History and Discussion of the Death Penalty, " L. Randa, editor, University Press of America, 1997.


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