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Capital Punishment Capital Punishment is the legal infliction of the death penalty. In the United States capital punishment is legal in thirty-nine of the fifty states. Beginning in 1973, prison populations began an inevitable growth. There were 204,211 inmates in 1973, and by 1977 the number of prisoners had grown to 285,456, which later grew to 315,974 in 1980. By 1976, it was clear that the death penalty had to be reinstated. America’s twenty-one year experiment with capital punishment has resulted in a total of 392 executions, seventy eight of which took place in 1996 alone. Of these only thirty-four were federal cases, out of which thirty two were male and only two were female. Every year about 15,000 killers are charged and only about 300 wind up on death row. The death row population is constantly increasing. It is now more than 3,000. Because of constant appeals, it takes a person on death row typically between five to eight years to finally get executed. To kill all the prisoners on death row, it is estimated that it would take two executions a day for seven years. Crimes such as aiding in suicide, causing a boat collision resulting in death, forced marriage, procuring an abortion resulting in the death of the mother, espionage, castrating another, rape, homicide, child molesting resulting in death and conspiracy to kidnap for ransom among many others are, in some states, crimes that are punishable by death. What the law permits, however, is not always used by the courts or the executive authorities. Most executions are a result of a murder or rape, and a small number for robbery, kidnapping, burglary, aggravated assault and espionage. In the US, the death penalty is currently authorized in one of five ways: hanging, which has been the traditional method of execution throughout the English-speaking world; electrocution, which was introduced by New York State in 1890; the gas chamber which was first adopted by Nevada in 1923; the firing squad which is used only in Utah and Idaho, and lethal injection which was introduced in 1977 by Oklahoma and is the most common form of execution in the US. Capital punishment is legal in Washington State, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington DC. Out of these, lethal injection is legal in thirty two states, electrocution in ten states, the gas chamber in five states, hanging in three states and the firing squad in two states. Some states use more than one method. Out of the thirty nine states where the death penalty is legal, twelve have had no executions. Texas is the state with the most executions with a total of 127. Florida and Virginia follow with a huge difference, only thirty nine executions per state. There are currently more than 3,000 people on death row, many without lawyers. Texas has the most, an amazing 448. California is a close second with 444. Wyoming, New Hampshire and New York are currently the only ones with no criminals on death row. It is unimaginable to see how blacks, which are only twelve percent of the US population, are a sweeping forty one percent of the inmates on death row. Timothy McVeigh is the new poster boy for capital punishment. After his home-made bomb exploded in the Murrah building in Oklahoma city, ending 168 innocent lives, including those of nineteen children, McVeigh is being prosecuted in courtroom C-204 in the United Stated Courthouse in Denver Colorado. This has been a two-year effort to execute the twenty nine year old man whom defendants are trying to make look like “the boy next door.” The defendant’s lawyers emphasized the fact that “he was brought up in a typical American family in upstate New York, and he won the Bronze Star for his combat service during the Persian Gulf War.” Timothy was a man loved not only be family, but by his friends and neighbors as well. It was very obvious throughout the trial that McVeigh is smart and alert and in no way mentally impaired. As the case progressed, Timothy seemed emotionally unaffected, unlike the jurors, lawyers and, at one point, the Honorable Richard P. Matsch. “The crime was pure savagery, premeditated and unprovoked.” Although the defense will not allow McVeigh to testify, they are making it quite clear that he loved his country, but came to believe that “ the federal government... had become master, had declared war on the American people.” Timothy’s bomb is practically identical to the one found in the plot of his favorite book, which is a racist and anti-Semitic book about a bomb attack on FBI headquarters in Washington by antigovernment “patriots.” McVeigh’s bomb, however was worst, due to the fact that in the book, no children were killed. It is almost impossible to believe that on April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh killed 168 innocent people out of fanaticism and hatred for his government. There are many reasons why the Oklahoma City bomber deserves the death sentence, nonetheless, jurors were asked not to let their feelings be a determining factor when deciding the verdict. Evidence designed to stir emotions, such as wedding pictures, poetry, and the testimony of a boy who misses his mother would be inadmissible. Jurors were also asked by the judge not to seek revenge and to ask themselves the following questions: Why does America put people to death? Is the death penalty meant to benefit society or to provide comfort to the victims? There is an important distinction that must be made between revenge and retribution. “Revenge is a hot, deeply personal desire to hurt the malefactor, and retribution is a statelier and more carefully considered decision to uphold the values of society.” The main question for the jurors, however, is to determine whether Timothy should die by lethal injection or spend the rest of his life in one of the jails in the federal corrections system. If the jurors would happen to decide against the death penalty, the state of Oklahoma could force him to face the death penalty a second time. Oklahoma has a long history of voting for the death penalty and has many inmates currently on death row. Some people believe that this is precisely the case that the death penalty was intended for. Even though there is weighty support for the death penalty, some people are doubtful when it comes to taking the life of another human being. It is also a probability that the death penalty could trigger further violence by the gun crazies and millennial extremists. When making the death penalty decision, jurors must respond three questions: Will the defendant eventually be released, which means he could possibly kill again, if he is not sentenced to die? Did the defendant show any regret? Was the crime notably brutal? In general, fifty six percent think a convicted murder should get the death penalty if he was driven by political or ideological beliefs, and only thirty six percent oppose. McVeigh’s old army friend, Terry Nichols, helped blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City with a massive fertilizer bomb. Nichols awaits his trial on the charges that he helped plan and carry out the crime and to destroy the evidence. If convicted, Nichols could also find himself face to face with the death penalty. Evidence against Terry include blasting caps found in his basement, explosives that had been stolen from the quarry months before, a receipt for 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate with McVeigh’s fingerprint, and the rented Ryder truck used for the bombing. Other examples of criminals who have suffered capital punishment include Rolando Cruz and another Chicago man. They were both sentenced to death in 1985 for the abduction, death, and murder of a ten-year-old little girl named Jeanine Nicarico. Because the prosecution had based its case on a vision statement, the conviction was overturned. There was another man who had actually confessed to the murder, however, he was never allowed to testify, and Cruz was convicted again on the evidence of a dream regarding the crime that he confessed he had. Cruz’s conviction was overturned once more and it wasn’t until a third trial that DNA evidence cleared his name. Rolando Cruz was finally acquitted in November 1995. After eleven years, he is finally free. On June 13, 1997, ten minutes past midnight, a former Ku Klux Klan member was killed just outside Mobile, Alabama by high voltage which slammed into his brain. His name was Henry Francis Hays. He was convicted in 1981 for abducting, brutally beating and cutting, then strangling a black teenage boy named Michael Donald after a jury failed to convict him. This was supposed to be a show of strength. Hays’ friend and accomplice got life imprisonment. It took sixteen years to finally execute Hays, and the execution went virtually unnoticed. Only ten people gathered outside the prison gates, and the press barely covered it. Federal prisoners currently on death row include the marijuana grower David Rolando Chandler who was convicted in May 1991 for hiring a man to kill a police informer and Juan Raul Garza who was given the death sentence in 1993 because of his connection to three murders committed in Brownsville. Cory Johnson, Richard Tipton, and James Roane Jr. are three crack dealers that were sentenced to death in 1988 for a string of murders designed to expand their territories. Other death row inmates include Louis Jones who was sentenced to death in 1995 for kidnapping, raping, and murdering a female soldier from a Texas military base and Anthony George Battle who was already serving life in prison when he killed a corrections officer. The other names are Orlando Hall, Bruce Webster, Len Davis, Paul Hardy and Bountaem Chanthadara. As executions increase, so do the charges that the death penalty is unfair. “Factors such as race and poor lawyering can be as decisive as a murder’s seriousness.” An overwhelming majority of capital cases involve crimes committed against people who are white. Blacks who kill whites are sentenced to death at a far higher rate than whites who kill blacks. In the U.S., the chief objection to capital punishment has been that it has always been used unfairly, in at least three major ways. First, women are rarely sentenced to death and executed, even though 20 percent of all homicides in recent years have been committed by women. Second, a disproportionate number of nonwhites are sentenced to death and executed. Third, poor and friendless defendants, those with inexperienced or court-appointed counsel, are most likely to be sentenced to death and executed. Defenders of the death penalty, however, believe that discrimination is not a sufficient reason for abolishing the death penalty. Although people like President Clinton, the Supreme Court, and many federal state lawmakers back capital punishment, the American Bar Association believes that executions should stop until reforms are enacted. No one today questions the necessity for punishing criminals by depriving them of their freedom for periods of time, however, there is ardent discussion regarding the topic of the death sentence. Questions such as when, how, and to whom it should be applied are crucial when discussing the subject. The very existence of capital punishment is, in many occasions, questioned. The people who defend it believe it is legitimate and necessary, and those who oppose it believe it is unjustifiable and outdated. Many times the question is life or death, mercy or vengeance. Is capital punishment meant to benefit society or provide comfort to the victimized? It is an international ongoing debate. Some people think that capital punishment serves to remind us of the moral order in our law, that some animals need killing, if only to remind the rest of us animals how to live. Other people’s opinions differ, however. They believe that life without parole is, in some ways, more retributive than death. It forces the convict to accept his punishment for the rest of his life, and it makes us morally energetic about punishment. There are, on the other hand, some Americans that want to see more executions with fewer appeals and delays, especially those who live in the “Death Belt” states of Texas, Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas, and Alabama, which together make up for seventy-eight percent of the executions in America. Other folks feel that death is the most irrevocable of all sanctions and that they should use the usual alternative to the death penalty which is long-term or life imprisonment. These people emphasize the fact that there is possibility of perjured testimony, mistaken honest testimony and human error. There is no way of knowing how many innocent persons have been executed. The death penalty decisions must be unanimous by the convicting jury. The fundamental questions raised by the death penalty are whether it is an effective obstacle to violent crime, and whether it is more effective than the alternative of long-term imprisonment. Defenders of the death penalty insist that because taking an offender's life is a more severe punishment than any prison term, it must be the better deterrent. Supporters also argue that it is better to kill the criminal before he can commit another crime or murder, even while he or she is incarcerated. Those who argue against the death penalty as an obstacle to crime so that the adjacent states, in which one has a death penalty and the other does not, show no significant long-term differences in the murder rate; states that use the death penalty seem to have a higher number of homicides than states that do not use it; states that abolish and then reintroduce the death penalty do not seem to show any significant change in the murder rate; and no change in the rate of homicides in a given city or state seems to occur following a local execution. Criminologists affirm that there is that no conclusive evidence that exists to show that the death penalty is a more effective impediment to violent crime than long-term imprisonment. There is a margin of more than two-to-one people that support the death penalty. Seventy-four percent of the people are in favor of the death penalty for individuals convicted of serious crimes, but only forty-five percent think it deters people from committing crimes. A sweeping sixty percent don’t think that vengeance is a legitimate reason for killing a murderer. Many court decisions of the 1980s and early 1990s have lowered bars to executions. In 1986 the Court ruled that opponents of executions may be barred from juries in murder cases. The following year the Court ruled that the law may be applied to accomplices in crimes that led to murder, then rejected a challenge to capital punishment based on statistics that indicated racial bias in sentencing. In separate decisions in 1989 the Court decided that the death penalty could be applied to those who were mentally retarded or who were underage, but at least 16, at the time of the murder. In the early 1990s the trend of Supreme Court rulings was to cut back on the appeals that Death Row inmates could make to the federal courts. Essay Grade: 3.50/5 This essay is only for research purposes. If used, be sure to cite it properly! |
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, December 3rd, 2005