The Death Penalty

The death penalty has only recently became a topic of controversy. Should it be the

government’s decision to take a life? Even if the person who might receive it took someone

else’s life? The death penalty used to be such a normal thing, but now people are saying, “It’s

unconstitutional,” but when did that begin?

According to deathpenaltyinfo.org, the first recorded established death penalty laws date

back to Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon. It was the

punishment for 25 crimes. It was also used in the Seventh Century B.C.’s Draconian Code of

Athens that stated death was the only punishment for all crimes. In the Roman Law of the

Twelve Tablets in the fifth century had crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive,

and impalement were how they would execute them. Things remained the same up until the tenth

century AD where hanging became usual in Britain.

Nothing changed until William the Conqueror would not allow the death penalty unless

it was times of war. That did not last long though. When Henry VII became ruler, 72,000 people

are estimated to have been executed. They would have been boiled, burned at the stake, hanged,

beheaded, or drawn and quartered. America has been using the death penalty ever since they

arrived in the colonies. European settlers came to America and brought capital punishment with

them. The first-ever recorded punishment was in the new colonies in 1608 in Virginia.

There are two very different views on the death penalty, either you’re all for it or you’re

against it. As of 2016, the Democratic Party platforms stance was, “We will abolish the death

penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment… the cost to taxpayers

far exceeds those of life imprisonment.” According to oadp.org, the reasons to oppose the death

penalty are:

1. Life without parole

 2. It puts innocent lives at risk

3. A person’s race and place determines who lives and how they die

4. We pay millions for the death penalty

5. Poor quality of defense leaves many sentenced to death

6. Capital punishment does not deter crime

7. It’s applied at random

8. There’s a better way to help families of murder victims

9. Capital punishment goes against almost every religion

10. Mentally ill people are executed

11. We are the “state”, when the “state” kills, we are participants

12. U.S. is keeping company with notorious human rights abusers

13. No civilian’s job description should include killing another person

Things, also, don’t always go as planned when it comes to executing people though and

there’s a name for it, botched execution. According to deathpenalty.org, 3.15% of all executions

were botched as of 2014. That’s 276 out of 8,776 executions from when they started being

recorded. The most common form now of days, lethal injection, has a botched execution rate of

7.12%. Out of 1,054 executions of lethal injection, 75 of them were botched.

The Republican Party, “a party of law and order”, believes we “must make in clear words

and action that every human life matters… The essential role of federal law enforcement

personnel in protecting federal property and combating interstate crime should not be

compromised by diversion to matters properly handled by state local authorities.” According to

oadp.org, reasons to support the death penalty are:

1. It’s proportionate to the crimes they have committed

2. 8th amendment says it has to be quick and 5th says you have to be before a grand jury

who find you guilty

 3. Deters murders

4. We have the responsibility to punish those but only to the degree which they deserve

5. All 12 jurors have to believe the person is guilty before the person can be sentenced

6. Cost of death is less than the cost of keeping someone in prison for life

7. Race is pretty equal: 48.6% - White, 40.9% - African American, 8.9% - Hispanic

8. Family receives closure and doesn’t have to worry

9. Public defenders can be good and large firms sometimes work for death row cases

10. Physicians should be able to offer their abilities to make sure their abilities to make sure

botched executions don’t happen

The death penalty should remain available to be used in extreme cases. If the person who

is on trial murdered someone, then they deserve to die as well, an eye for an eye. It is capital

punishment and is treated as so. Along with the death penalty comes being stuck on death row,

which can last for decades. During those years, new evidence can come up and the convicted can

be released. According to aclu.org, since 1973, 123 people were released from death row, before

they were executed. We understand where people are coming from when they say the

government shouldn’t be able to take someone’s life, but it’s acceptable in these situations.

We have to look at where things do go wrong though. Botched executions don’t happen

often, but when they do it goes against the 8th amendment, by it not being a quick and painless

death. Also, some people are sentenced to death when they haven’t committed any of the crimes

that you can receive the death penalty for murder, espionage, treason, large-scale drug

trafficking, and attempted murder of a witness, juror, or court officer. In 1995, Demetrius

Howard was sentenced to death when he didn’t commit a murder. He helped rob a place, but the

man who he helped rob the place with killed someone. Howard received the death penalty as a

punishment, but the other man received life without parole.

 What are the solutions to the problem, though? The death penalty should be available to

use, but only for those crimes that are supposed to be punishable by death: murder, espionage,

treason, large-scale drug trafficking, and attempted murder of a witness, juror, or court officer.

No one should be killed for being an accessory to murder, since they weren’t the one killing

them and the one who murdered the human not be. The government should keep the right to take

another human, but only if the crime they committed was that extreme.