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Essay: The death penalty discriminates, and doesn’t reduce murder

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  • Subject area(s): Criminology essays
  • Reading time: 5 minutes
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  • Published: 29 January 2022*
  • Last Modified: 23 July 2024
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  • Words: 1,235 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 5 (approx)
  • Tags: Death penalty essays

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The Eighth Amendment states that Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. When define means that the amendment is meant to safeguard Americans against excessive punishments. The Death Penalty in a way violates the Eighth Amendment since the Amendment is meant to protect a citizen from “cruel and unusual punishment”. In August 1890 New York State Performs the First Execution by Electrocution with the Assistance of Thomas Edison’s Engineers. Supreme Court justices can decide Since the constitution does not allow or disallow the death penalty, many defendants facing execution have brought their cases of the Supreme Court. Amid different periods from the 1600s forward, New York law endorsed capital punishment for wrongdoing, for example, homosexuality, infidelity, duplicating, prevarication, and endeavored assault or murder by slaves. In 1796, New York canceled capital punishment for violations other than homicide and treachery, yet fire-related crime was made capital wrongdoing in 1808.

Death Penalty there isn’t the smallest believable measurable proof that death penalty diminishes the rate of murder. Regardless of whether one thinks about the comparable developments of manslaughter in Canada and the US when just the last re-established capital punishment, or in American expresses that have annulled it versus those that hold it, or in Hong Kong and Singapore, there is no noticeable impact of the death penalty on wrongdoing. The best econometric investigations achieve a similar end. The belief that the death penalty will deter people from committing murder rests on the simple psychological truth that most people would rather live than die. Many advocates of capital punishment justify it more harshly, Slaughtering a killer, or even simply influencing him to endure a group, is scapegoating. Furthermore, in the event that you think the proper method to manage issues is by scapegoating, it’s a short advance from that to taking individuals who have done nothing incorrectly and relinquishing them for disposing of your terrible sentiments, more homicide. A study of capital punishment by the United Nations agrees that they couldn’t find any evidence that the death penalty prevented killings. The basic case against capital punishment is summed up by the death penalty opponents in four words “Thou shalt not kill”. For some this a religious conviction, for others, it is a moral principle. It’s not concerned with the guilt or innocence of the person being executed. Carrying out the death sentence is wrong because killing is wrong, it’s as wrong when the state does it as punishment as when a killer murders a victim. This is the belief that underlies the arguments used to answer the case made by those who advocate capital punishment. Those who would extend mercy to killers differently than those who approve of it. It follows that the view that closure for family members of victims justifies executing their killers is disputed by survivors like Coretta Scott King and others. Many laws enforcement officials believe that capital punishment is no deterrent to murder. They say that “curbing drug use and putting more officers on the street, longer sentences and gun control” are the methods most effective in reducing violent crime. They find the death penalty “least effective”.

The justice system discriminates against the poor, according to the fourteenth amendment “no state can pass a law that sets different penalties for rich and poor for the same crime. But many defendants cannot afford to hire good lawyers, and some have no money whatsoever. The expense of appealing a death sentence can be very high. Prisoners who cannot afford lawyers of their own must use lawyers appointed by the state. Often, such public defenders have little time to spare. They might have little expertise in death penalty appeals. When a defense lawyer does a poor job in a capital trial, the outcome can be serious. An execution, rather than a life sentence, is the result. Capital punishment is biased, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, “half of those on death row are from minority populations that make up only 20% of the country’s population. Blacks are represented on death row at three and a half times their proportion in the population as a whole”. others may argue that more minorities receive the death penalty because whites hold a higher population. They point out the most same race homicides occur between acquaintances which result of family quarrels or crime of passion, unpremeditated killings which are not capital crimes don’t usually result in death sentences. However, there is also a strong feeling among black leaders that the system is set up in a way that is biased against minorities.

Majority of jurisdictions have capital punishment and the prosecutor is the one who decides whether or not to seek the death penalty. According to Salon, “one area of the justice system where progress has been much slower is the election of local district attorneys, who remain overwhelmingly white and tend to be conservative in their upholding of regressive and outdated laws.”, which indicates that minorities live risk being the mercy of white prejudices.

The criminal justice system is designed to create justice, it’s supposed to decide on guilt or innocence. Since we rely on human beings to carry out the criminal justice system mistakes are bound to happen, but what if that innocent person is sentenced to death and executed for a murder he or she didn’t commit. Anthony Porter was sentenced to death after being found guilty of shooting two people in a park in Chicago, Illinois. Porter kept appealing his death sentence for 16 years after his last appeal was denied his scheduled for September 23, 1998. But on September 21 another stay of execution came through because Northwestern University professor David Protess hired an investigator and claimed to have new evidence in the case, soon another man confessed to the crime and porter was freed but he had come within 48 hours of dying. Various individuals are professed to have been honest casualties of capital punishment. Recently accessible DNA proof has permitted the absolution and arrival of in excess of 20 death row prisoners since 1992 in the Unified States, but DNA proof is accessible in just a small amount of capital cases. Others have been discharged based on frail bodies of evidence against them, now and then including prosecutorial wrongdoing; bringing about absolution at a retrial, charges dropped, or blamelessness based acquittals. Capital punishment Data Center U.S. has distributed a rundown of 10 prisoners executed yet potentially blameless. No less than 39 executions are professed to have been done in the U.S. even with proof of blamelessness or genuine uncertainty about blame.

There are many different issues surrounding capital punishment: the causes of the crime, the workings of the justice system, the effects of poverty and racial discrimination, the role of media, prison system, states rights, religious doctrines, and the meaning of cruel and unusual punishment. An alternative for the death penalty is for the criminal to be imprisonment without parole. In some ways, this sentence can be just as harsh as death. Living inside a crowded prison in a small cell, surrounded by other criminals, is a kind of slow death in itself. Some life sentences carry an additional penalty, known as restitution. A prisoner who must make restitution to the families of his or her victim must turn over all money and property he or she has or earns.

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