Death Penalty

Capital Punishment:

Just or Unjust?

Can you imagine knowing the exact day, time, and place you were going to die, not to mention how your death was to come about? Day after day of mental pain just knowing that days, hours, minutes and even seconds from now you are going to be killed. The night before, tossing and turning, playing through your head just the way you imagine your death is going to be, asking yourself heaven or hell, suffering or short? If only you can take that one moment of sin back or maybe there was never a moment of sin at all. After what seems like a hundred of years, the day finally arrives. You slowly walk into the chamber, your heart is racing, your hands are clammy, and you are shaking not because it is cold, but out of fear. Your assistants lead you to your position, and prepare you for your execution. You sit and think about all the wonderful things in life you are thankful for and then what seems like a dream finally fades to black. I strongly believe that the death penalty is the best form of punishment for heinous murderers.

History of the Death Penalty

The death penalty is one of the most controversial issues brought up in America today. The penalty has been around as far back as the sixteen hundreds. Britain was the country that most strongly influenced America's usage of the death penalty (Hood 24). There are several different forms of the death penalty. In the eighteenth century, the most common way to kill a person who committed a crime was to hang them. Prisoners were hanged for several different reasons: some for something as severe as murdering another citizen,

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others for something as small as stealing (Hood 28). At the end of the nineteenth century, the electric chair had been adopted as a means of execution. The first chair was built in the city of New York. Soon after many other states were also using this as a method of Capital Punishment ( Hood 34 ). In the mid-twentieth century, lethal gas was introduced as another form of execution. The state of Nevada tried to put cyanide gas into one of the inmate's cell which did not work, and it then led to the construction of the gas chamber (Hood 45).

The electric chair which was first used in New York in 1890 and sometimes known as the "old sparky," was used several times. The accused was strapped to a wooded chair, electrodes were attached, and a shock of thirty-thousand watts was applied. The inmate was literally cooked internally, and death may possibly require multiple shocks("Debate Over"). The gas chamber, first used in Nevada in 1921, was located in an airtight room with a chair into which the accused was strapped. Death was then caused by an exposure to cyanide gas. As noted in the article Debate Over Capital Punishment-A Pro Stance, the suffering caused is easy to see; the prisoner is writing, vomiting, shaking and gasping for breath for many seconds ("Debate Over"). Lethal Injection, another form of execution, was introduced in 1977 and is now used in twenty-three states. This is the most widespread method and believed to be the most humane. The convicted is strapped to a table and injected with sodium thiopentone, losing

consciousness in ten to fifteen seconds. This is then followed by pancuronium bromide, which blocks respiration, and finally potassium chloride to stop the heart ("Debate Over").

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In the 1930's there were more executions than any other decade. The average executions were one-hundred and sixty-seven per year, which is an incredibly high number of deaths("Amnesty Facts"). During the 1960's people began challenging the legality of the death penalty. Many people said that it was "cruel and inhumane" and it violated the Eighteenth Amendment("Amnesty Facts" ). In 1972 the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was cruel and inhumane which is unconstitutional according to the Eighteenth Amendment. The United States reversed this decision when a "cleaner" way to bring about death was found in 1976, which was lethal injection. Thirty-eight states currently utilize the death penalty including the United States Military. Although the number of executions is gradually declining, there still remains a high number of deaths that occur each year. As reported by Amnesty International, sixty-five prisoners were executed in 2003 bringing the year end total to eight-hundred and eighty- five executions since the death penalty resumed in 1977("Amnesty Facts" ). The 900th execution was carried out on March 3, 2004. As of January 2004 there are currently three-thousand and five hundred inmates on death row in the United States("Amnesty Facts").

Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty

One organization that is clearly against executioners is Amnesty International. Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights ("Amnesty-The Death"). "It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice." Amnesty is opposed to all cases of the death penalty without exception ("Amnesty-The Death").

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They believe that the penalty is a violation of fundamental human rights-the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhume degrading punishment("Amnesty-The Death"). These are the two most common rights that are often cited in debates about the death penalty. Amnesty claims that the punishment can be met by other means, and that the death should not be their only way out. Many prisoners who face a possible death sentence are often represented by inexperienced lawyers and sometimes no lawyer at all. The defendants may not understand the charges or the evidence against them, especially if they are not conversant with the language used in court, which makes such cases unfair (Prokosch). Killing someone in the act of self-defense against an immediate threat to life is acceptable, but the premeditated killing of a prisoner who could be dealt with by less harsh means is not, according to Amnesty International("Amnesty-The Death"). Too many citizens are unaware that the death penalty does not offer society further protection but rather further brutalization. Different scientific studies have consistently failed to find evidence that the penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments ("Amnesty-The Death"). The death penalty is believed to be a harsh punishment, but it does not discourage crime. There will always be a risk of killing an innocent human being who does not