Example research essay topic: Death Penalty Statutes Century B C - 1,868 words

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The Righteous Debate against Capital Punishment In these times of nationalistic fervor and pride, the successful citizens of a country rarely ever stop and consider the legitimacy of their governments actions. The majority of citizenry feel they are being the best they can be by utterly and completely supporting their country in everything it does. The best citizen though, would do everything possible to make sure that their country is doing the finest and fairest job possible with regard to honor, justice, truth, and equality. In fact, it is a citizens duty to always check that the American government upholds these values which give the country its greatness.

It is up to everyone to ensure that we are not being blinded or manipulated by tradition, media, or propaganda, and to always question the righteousness of U. S. governmental action. Capital punishment is an example of one of our governments behaviors worthy of this patriotic criticism. The concept of the death penalty may seem sensible and just to some, but in reality it is more comparable to an ejecting seat on a helicopter -- theory and practice are gravely different. The practice of corporal punishment in the U.

S. has been so horrendously corrupted and perverted from the original theory, that it has come to the point that one might wonder whether it is ever possible to instate corporal punishment without the same flaws which the rest of society suffers. In an examination of moral beliefs regarding capital punishment, the cruelty and pain endured during executions, the personal bias and unfairness in capital cases, the execution of youth and the execution of mentally ill and incompetent, it will be demonstrated that capital punishment is imposed in violation of the equal protection clause of the U. S. Constitution and undermines the fundamental fairness which is the foundation of the United States. A further examination of capital punishment suggests that it also does not deter crime, it has a financial cost to society (violates true capitalist principles with regard to profit margins), and most importantly, capital punishment has led to and continues to lead to the execution of innocent people.

History is always the first step in the route to understanding. Comprehension of the beginnings of capital punishment leads to the necessary knowledge of context and original expectations when it was first instated. In Europe, from where American law descends, there were many applications of capital punishment. Under Romes law of the Twelve Tablets in the fifth century B. C. , for example, death was the penalty for publishing insulting songs and disturbing the peace of the city at night (Kronenwetter 10). Under Greece's Draconian legal code in the seventh century B.

C. , death was the punishment for every crime. In England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in addition to usual methods like hanging and beheading by guillotine, executions occurred in ways of drowning, burning, boiling, beheading, pressing, and hanging, drawing & quartering (Andrews). In Rome, England, and Greece executions happened publicly. Citizens were encouraged to watch wrongdoers pay for their crimes. Also, victims families could get the grim satisfaction of watching their foe perish, and public officials could show off their determination to seek and carry out justice. Even some convicted criminals favored public executions because of the last chance to claim innocence, address the town to gain sympathy, and attempt to honorably die well. (Kronenwetter 11).

In some towns, in attempts to deter criminal behavior even further, executed or maimed criminals corpses and body parts were publicly displayed on walls, dangled on chains, and perched on stakes (Kronenwetter 11). In these Old World societies, the prominent aristocracy of nobles, gentlemen, magistrates, and officials were rarely ever punished by death. They were more likely to be slapped on the wrist or given a fine. From the seventh century B. C. on, clergymen in most European societies were never tried for any common crime, much less put to death (Kronenwetter 11).

Higher socially standing citizens were likely to be executed only when convicted of treason. Even then, the method of execution for the privileged was much more merciful and painless than the method for the minority. For example, the minority of Jews and Christians who committed capital crimes in the Ottoman Empire were put to death by being impaled alive: stakes were driven up through their bodies with blow from a heavy mallet. At the same time there, when any regular Turk citizen was executed, he would be swiftly decapitated (Kronenwetter 11). The trend of mainly executing the poor and defenseless has proved to be a pattern, as it continues in modern times.

The government has accepted capital punishment as a fair institution since back in the Colonial Period. At that time, the English Penal Code was enforced upon the British colonies. Application varied from state to state, but most fervently used in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where there were thirteen capital offenses: idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, rape, statutory rape, kidnapping, perjury in a trial involving a possible death sentence, rebellion, murder, assault in sudden anger, adultery, and sodomy (Information Plus 2). In contrast, New Jersey Quakers adapted much milder laws. The Royal Charter for South Jersey (1646) did not permit capital punishment for any crime, and there was no execution until 1691. In Pennsylvania, William Penns Great Act of 1682 restricted the death penalty only to treason and murder (Information Plus 2).

Carrying forward the anachronistic legacy, the United States of America still recognizes the institutionalized murder of convicted criminals as legal. In 1960, an implied moratorium (suspension of executions) began when Justice Arthur Goldberg dissented on a rape case in which the defendant had been sentenced to death (Rudolph v. Alabama), and raised the question of the legality of capital punishment. This coincided with the declining national average of executions: 166 in the 1930 s, 128 in the 1940 s, and 72 in the 1950 s (Information Plus 5). The moratorium ended in 1972 when Utah executed a convicted murderer, virtually at the criminals own request. The famous split five to four Supreme Court case Furman v.

Georgia, which also included Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas, held that as the statutes are administered the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty [constitutes] cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eight and Fourteenth Amendments. Still, Justices varied in their opinions, as Justice Stewart remarked, The instinct for retribution is part of the nature of man, and channeling that instinct in the administration of criminal justice serves an important purpose in promoting the stability of a society governed by law. Justice Douglas remarked, It is the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the powerless, and the hated who are executed[The law] leaves to the uncontrolled discretion of judges and juries the determination whether defendants committing these crimes should die or be imprisoned these discretionary statutes are unconstitutional.

This ruling was an achievement towards abolition, as all death penalty statutes in the nation were (in effect) ended. Also recently, on July 2, 1976, the High Court made a clear and opposite decision against the declarations laid out earlier in Furman v. Georgia. In a seven to two decision on a series of cases concerning capital punishment, they decisively ruled that it is, indeed, constitutional.

In one such case, Gregg v. Georgia, Justices decreed, the infliction of death as a punishment for murder is not without justification and is not unconstitutionally severe. Death penalty statutes were upheld with these new Supreme rulings in Georgia, Florida, and Texas. Still, other laws were struck down, such as in North Carolina and Louisiana for being too rigid in requiring death for certain crimes. The Supreme Court worked hard to make compromises to satisfy demands set in Furman, by making such laws in Georgia requiring that all death sentences be automatically appealed to the state Supreme Court, as an important additional safeguard against arbitrariness and caprice.

These new rulings were disappointing milestones for abolitionists (those who want executions abolished), as it seemed that the High Court was so close to condemning the death penalty only four years earlier. Many Americans at the time believed they had seen the last of United States executions. The U. S.

stands out among other comparable countries as one that still executes its own citizens. Currently the U. S. is one of only two Western industrially-developed countries that imposes the death penalty. The other is Belgium, which has not executed anyone in forty years, but keeps the death penalty on the books (Information Plus 4).

Amnesty International, an international organization vehemently organized against the death penalty-citing it as the ultimate cruel and unusual punishment-classifies Belgium as abolitionist de facto: it has not carried out an execution in over a decade (Amnesty). America is joined also by the Eastern nation of Japan. A report by Amnesty International finds that executions in Japan are arbitrary and are carried out in secret: the prisoner is told less than two hours before their execution about their imminent death, and the families and lawyers are never told of the decision to carry out the death penalty. There are at least 110 people under sentence of death in Japan, some 50 of whom have had their sentences upheld by the Supreme Court (or become final in the lower courts) and can be executed at any time. The oldest prisoner is aged 84 and has spent 29 years under sentence of death; another prisoner is 70 and has spent 32 years in death row. There are at least twelve others who have spent over twenty years under sentence of death.

The practice of not informing prisoners until the last hour of their execution deprives them of the opportunity to meet with family for final farewells, and makes it impossible for lawyers to file last-minute appeals. It is indeed a grim comparison to the US, seeing how much worse the institution of the death penalty can be. Today in the US, the death penalty is a growing institution. According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), an unbiased information group based out of Washington D.

C. which offers a vast amount of facts on capital punishment in America, in the year 2001, there are 3, 717 prisoners on death row. This is a startling increase from 1968 when there were only 517 [see appendix A]. Since 1976, there have been 738 prisoners killed by the government [see appendix A] (DPIC). In the year 2001, 54 prisoners were put to death, all by lethal injection (DPIC). The leading state in numbers of executions was Oklahoma, at sixteen deaths, followed closely by Texas, at fourteen deaths (DPIC).

However though, with two hundred and eight executions since 1976 to 2001, Texas far exceeds any other state in executions (DPIC). In the debate against this swelling enterprise of death, there are passionate, moral, faith-based, and opinion-based (rather than fact-based) ideals that are fundamental inspiration toward maintaining, reforming, or abolishing the system. Avid supporters justify their cause with different religious scriptures, as well as common philosophy regarding justice. They hold the sanctity of human life higher in concern to the victim, rather than the criminal. They propose that the execution of...

Research essay sample on Death Penalty Statutes Century B C