Death Penalty

LEGAL STUDIES

FOCUS STUDY Ð'- CRIME ASSESSMENT TASK

BY STEPHANIE POWER

DEATH PENALTY IN AMERICA

THE HISTORY: Death penalty laws date back to as far as the 18th century BC in England. Under the rules of King Hammaurabi of Babylon the death penalty was codified as you're only allowed to be punished to death for one or more of 25 crimes. Such punishments were:

Ð'* Crucifixion

Ð'* Drowning

Ð'* Beating to death

Ð'* Burning alive

Ð'* Impalement

In the 20th century AD hanging became the more common way of capital punishment in England. In the 1700's 222 crimes were punishable by death some of the crimes included:

Ð'* Cutting down a tree

Ð'* Stealing

Because of the harshness of the consequences of committing non serious crimes the judges were reluctant to sentence the death penalty and chose jail instead. Over time 100 out of 222 crimes were eliminated for crimes worth capital punishment. Brittain influenced the Americans to use the death penalty in their legal system then any other countries; as when the English arrived in America they brought the capital punishment with them. The first recorded execution in America was for George Kendall in Virginia in 1608 for being a spy for Spain. Thus enacting the divine moral and martial laws which provide the death penalty for small crimes such as:

Ð'* Stealing grapes

Ð'* Trading with the Indians

But these laws varied from colony to colony for example in the colony of New York under the dukes law in 1665 you could be sentenced to death row for:

Ð'* Striking one mother or father

Ð'* By denying " the true God "

But in Massachusetts held its first execution in 1630, even though that the capital punishment laws from England were not enforced till many years later; In the 19th century the first electric chair was built in New York in 1888 and was first used in 1890. As well as in the 19th century the Abolitionist movement came around concerning the death penalty, which then many states reduced the crimes that in result ends up with capital punishment with some states abolishing the death penalty from everything except for treason. By 1963 all mandatory capital punishments had been abolished in all states. In the 1920's the Americans brought in the cyanided gas as it was thought of a more humane way of executing people; the first person to be executed by the gas was Gee Jon, they tried to gas him while he was asleep in his cell, that was a disaster and therefore the gas chamber was built in cause of that affect. In the 1930's this was the highest rate of death penalty as it was the era of the Depression which lead people to commit crime the average death penalty was about 167 people/year for the decade. In the 50's people started to turn away from the death penalty and numbers dropped dramatically. In the 60's and 70's this was an all time low period for capital punishment. And in 1982 was the first year of the lethal injection which was injected into Charles Brooks and is the main method of death punishment still used today.

WHY IS IT CONTROVERSIAL?

Two moderately recent developments have focused converted attention on the death penalty in the United States.

In 2000, Governor George Ryan of Illinois forced a moratorium on the imposition of the death penalty in Illinois. Reviewing death penalty cases since 1977, he found that 13 death row inmates in the state had been acquitted of murder charges, compared to 12 who had been put to death. a few of the 13 inmates were taken off death row after DNA evidence found them innocent; the cases of others collapsed after new trials were ordered by appellate courts. "There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be studied", Ryan said. As luck would have it, the Republican Governor had campaigned in support of capital punishment. In January 2003, Governor Ryan commuted all death sentences to prison terms of life or less.

The execution of Timothy McVeigh in June 2001 also prompted renewed international interest in the U.S. practice of the death penalty because of the high profile nature of the case.

Proponents of the death penalty argue that it deters criminals. Because so many variables are involved, this is a difficult objective to evaluate. It is relatively safe to conclude that the overall serious crime rate is influenced by lots of other factors. Proponents also argue that the death penalty provides emotional reimbursement to the families of crime victims.

Most death penalty critics have an ethical basis for their opposition. They argue that a government's act to execute is a breach of human rights, especially if there is a possibility that the individual is innocent. The development of DNA testing has exonerated a number of convicted criminals, include some on death row. They also charge that the penalty is particularly barbaric when applied to mentally retarded persons and juveniles.

Death penalty critics argue that the high reversal rate in death penalty cases illustrate the failure of the criminal justice process. A full 65% of convictions in capital cases are overturned according to one study. Yet there does not appear to be significant progress on many proposals to modify criminal procedures in capital cases such assigning special judges and guaranteeing adequately trained counsel. Nor are there proposals which might impose a higher standard of proof in death cases for the purpose of reducing the risk of executing innocent persons.

Because of the intense examination and numerous appeals applied to death penalty cases, a growing number of legal professionals have begun to oppose the death penalty for economic reasons, saying that the costs of trial and appeals for a capital case are greater than would be the case if the death penalty were not available. The average amount of time between the date of conviction and the date of execution is 10 years. Death penalty inmates maintain that life imprisonment without likelihood of parole is still less expensive and there does not yet appear to be a study that has thoroughly evaluated this issue.

Finally, many death penalty opponents are concerned that the