History of the Death Penalty Compared to Texas and Canada. How Are We Better off?

History of the death penalty compared to Texas and Canada. How are we better off?

First of all, where does the death penalty come from? The first recognized death penalty laws go as far back as 18 century B.C. and can be found in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon. The Hammurabi Code gives the death penalty to over 25 different crimes, and as weird as it may seem, murder is not one of them. The death penalty was also included in the Hittite Code in the 14th century B.C.

How did the death penalty come to America? When European settlers came the United States, they brought with them their laws, way of punishment, and the first known execution of Captain George Kendall in 1608.

Texas is pretty damn trigger happy when it comes to executions. The amount of execution in Texas per year cannot even be compared to any other state. Texas itself is responsible for more than 1 third of the executions that take place in America. One county in Texas, County Harris, is responsible for over 280 death sentences and 116 executions since 1982. But Texas itself is accountable for having executed 551 people since 1982. In 2017, 7 people were executed. In 2018, 8 people have already been executed. Of the 8 executed in 2018, there was 1 female Latina, 3 black females, 3 white females, 1 black male, and 1 male Latino. The ages range from 31 to 64, and all of them were executed by lethal injection. These dates start from the 18th of January to the 16th of May. These people had to wait 9 to 17 years prior to their execution. This time may seem long, but there were 3 females that had to wait 31 years before their execution in Georgia.  Even if Texas did not want to have so many executions, there isn't an easy way out...The Texas constitution does not let the governor place a ban on executions.

In 1976, the Supreme Court lifted the prohibition on the death penalty. Between 1976 and 1998, Texas had executed 167 people. In the same time frame, Virginia, which was second in line in the amount of executions had only executed 60 people. There are many explanations as to why Texas can legally execute as many people as they do, which is more than any other state can even come close to.

In Texas, judges are elected, and therefore have to serve in order to please the public. Now, I'm not saying that in Texas, the public are barbaric animals that like to watch executions...but, a judge has a better chance of being elected/re-elected if it is known to the public that they are tough on criminals.

It is possible that the judges do not take every single little tiny aspect of a death penalty case. This is a big accusation which Brent Newton, writes about in an article entitled "Capital Punishment: Texas Could Learn a Lot from Florida". He writes saying that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has refused to publish most of its decisions in death penalty cases, including many cases that discuss important issues of 1st impression. He says that the judges tend to dismiss habeas corpus appeals even in cases where there are clearly unanswered questions about the defendants guilt.

Habeas Corpus: a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person's release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention.

The second point Brent Newton makes talks about the judges. Texas does not have a public defender system for defenders that cannot afford a lawyer. Instead, there are court-appointed lawyers who most likely do not have experience with capital murder cases. There are many capita; murder cases with less than decent defences. One decision, which turned down a defendant's habeas appeal due to bad lawyering concluded that "the Constitution does not say that the lawyer has to be awake" during trial proceedings. Texas did not need to provide lawyers free of charge to post conviction habeas appeals up until the 1st of September in 1995.

Up until the early 1990s, the state of Texas did not allow jurors to properly mitigate evidence in the sentencing phase of a trial, meaning there have been many people on death row that wouldn't have been there if the was information on their mental illness or youth had been properly looked at.

In Houston, there was less overall crime and the violent crime rate decreased, but the murder rate jumped 23 percent, from 10.8 murders per 100,000 residents in 2014 to 13.3 in 2015, according to the report.

Violent crime rate in Huston is one of the highest in the nation. Offences that were tracked include rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter and armed robbery. Houston saw a total of 124,063 crimes in a city with the population of slightly more than 2 million.

Canada

Capital punishment in Canada dates back to Canada's earliest history, including its time as a French and British colony. From 1867 to the elimination of the death penalty for murder on July 14, 1976, 1,481 people had been sentenced to death, and 710 had been executed. There were hundreds of crimes that could result in death. There were small things that couldn't even get you jail time nowadays, such things as being found in disguise in a forest, were deemed capital offences. In 1867, when Canada become a country, the number of crimes that could get you the death penalty dropped from over 200 to only 3: rape, treason, and murder.

In 1914, Robert Bickerdike, who was a member of parliament called for the abolition of the death penalty but the bill did not pass. Even though the bill went nowhere, Canada was slowly moving towards getting rid of the death penalty. In 1954, rape was removed as a capital offence. In 1960, death sentences were often reduced to life in prison, which the government introduced into the Canadian Bill or Rights.

Public hangings were banned in Canada in 1869, so hangings had to be moved indoors. By 1961, the government introduced a system to classify the different degrees of murder, capital and non capital offences. The last execution for murder was on December 11, 1962 when Ronald Turpin, and Arthur Lucas were hanged together in Toronto for 2 different murders. The hanging led to a public outburst against hanging. After the hanging, murder convictions were often switched to life in prison.

In 1966, an attempt to abolish the death penalty was unsuccessful and defeated in the House of Commons, but the next year, the government passed a 5 year suspension for all crimes of murder but for one: the murder of an on duty police officer or prison guard. In 1973, the 5 year suspension had been extended by another 5 years. Before the 5 years were completed, there was a debate held in parliament about  Bill C-84; to finally get rid of the death penalty for all crimes not under military. This means military persons could still be given the death penalty for cowardice, desertion, unlawful surrender and spying.