Capital Punishment

The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, this code allowed the death penalty for 25 different crimes. Capital Punishment was also part of the Fourteenth Century B.C.'s Hittite Code; in the Seventh Century B.C.'s Draconian Code of Athens, which made death the only punishment for all crimes; and in the Fifth Century B.C.'s Roman law of the Twelve Tablets. Death sentences were carried out by such means as crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement.

When European settlers came to America, they brought the practice of capital punishment. The first recorded execution in the 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.

Although some states abolished the death penalty in the mid-Nineteenth Century, it was actually the first part of the Twentieth Century that marked the beginning of the "Progressive Period" of reform in the United States. From 1907 to 1917, six states completely outlawed the death penalty and three limited it to the rarely committed crimes of treason and first degree murder of a law enforcement official. However, this reform was short-lived. The U.S. had just entered World War I and there were intense class conflicts as socialists mounted the first serious challenge to capitalism. As a result, five of the six abolitionist states reinstated their death penalty by 1920. In 1924, the use of cyanide gas was introduced in Nevada. Nevada had been seeking 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 Jon's cell while he slept, but this proved impossible, and the gas chamber developed. From the 1920s to the 1940s, there was a boom 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 enduring Prohibition and the Great Depression. There were more executions in the 1930s than in any other decade in American history, an average of 167 per year.

I n the 1950s, public sentiment began to turn away from capital punishment and in the U.S., the number of executions dropped dramatically. Whereas there were 1,289 executions in the 1940s, there were 715 in the 1950s, 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 indicated support for the death penalty at only 42%.The 1960s 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 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Capital Punishment was brought to the Supreme Court in 1972 in, Furman v. Georgia. With the Furman decision the Supreme Court set the standard that a punishment would be "cruel and unusual" if it was too severe for the crime, if it was arbitrary, if it offended society's sense of justice, or it if was not more effective than a less severe penalty. This case marked the beginning of the abolition of capital punishment.

Capital Punishment was reinstated January 17, 1977, with the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in Utah. That same year, Oklahoma became the first state to adopt lethal injection as a means of execution, though it would be five more years until Charles Brooks became the first person executed by lethal injection in Texas on December 7, 1982.

Capital Punishment has raged in debate for hundred of years. Our group found it interesting to actually look at the number of people who are exonerated or granted clemency. Capital Punishment is a very final step in a person's life; you cannot undo the damage it does when a person is found innocent. We firmly believe that Capital Punishment should only be carried out in the event that there is DNA evidence linking that person to the crime scene and no room for reasonable doubt. Americans are entrusting the lives of our citizens to twelve members of a jury. In the movie "12 Angry Men", although fictional, the viewer is able to see the flaw in assuming that the jury will always do their job. We expect that these people are just putting their prejudices aside and listening to the facts, while considering any reasonable doubt. We purpose that this is not the case. What is most disturbing is any person could be put to death for a crime they did not commit, if the state has better legal counsel. There are too many mistakes made to be putting inmates to death. Since 1976, 229 death row inmates have been granted clemency for humanitarian reasons. Humanitarian reasons include doubts about the defendant's guilt or conclusions of the governor regarding the death penalty process. In addition, there have been 123 inmates exonerated since 1976. There have been a total of 1012 total executions to date since reinstatement of the death penalty. Given those numbers, 11% of the total executed was exonerated. That is a huge number of errors. Why would Americans support a system that puts innocent people to death 11% of the time? We would purpose that Americans do not understand how much error really occurs. In the next few sections we would like to take some time to tell you about 2 inmates wrongly sentenced, when innocent. Two inmates of that have lost a part of their lives to this system that is not always accurate.

Roy Criner

In 1990 Roy Criner was sentenced to prison for 99 years, his offense, the rape and murder of a sixteen year old girl Deanna Ogg, in 1987 in New Caney Texas. Criner a young logger was found Guilty and convicted largely on the basis of statements he had made that sounded like he had committed the murder. After years of unsuccessful appeals, in 1997 Criner submitted to DNA testing. The DNA testing came back, Criner could not have left the bodily fluids found on the murder victim. Believing that he would be freed was short lived even though DNA test were in his favor. The DNA test did not persuade local and state officials in order to over turn the conviction and grant Criner a new trial. In May of 1998 Judge Sharon Keller believed that there was overwhelming evidence, and thought Criner was guilty, even though the DNA evidence proved that it was not him that raped the girl at the crime