Capital Punishment Give It A Chance

Essay, Research Paper

Imagine a man who commits murder once, is given a fifteen-year jail sentence and is returned to the streets where he kills again. He is imprisoned again only to be released. This could happen since almost one in ten death row inmates has been convicted of murder at least once. That means that some death row inmates have been given more than one chance to rehabilitate in prison and continue to commit violent crimes. Should the United States justice system continue to let violent criminals back on the streets where they are likely to commit murder again. Capital punishment is one of the oldest forms of punishment in the world. Most societies have thought it to be a fair punishment for severe crimes, and it is even mentioned as an appropriate punishment in the Bible. American colonists used capital punishment before the United States was a country, and most states use it today. Currently, however, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the death penalty. Capital cases are long and expensive, and there is no proof to whether capital punishment deters crime. For these reasons total abolition may be the best way to resolve the capital punishment controversy. If the laws concerning capital punishment were modified, however, capital punishment could become much cheaper, and possibly a lot more effective.

There is not enough evidence to prove whether or not capital punishment deters crime. If the state governments used the death penalty consistently it could become an effective deterrent of violent crime. When trying to determine whether capital punishment does deter crime criminologists are forced to compare states that do have capital punishment to those that hardly use it. This makes it almost impossible to learn anything from the study. If all states used capital punishment consistently with certain crimes it would become easier to see the deterrence effect of capital punishment. Capital punishment needs to be implemented in each state, and each state needs to use it consistently. Anyone convicted of a murder more than once or anyone convicted of first degree murder should be put to death. These consistencies should help to deter potential criminals from committing murder. If the death penalty could deter violent crimes it would be of great value to society. Another problem with the capital punishment system used currently is the fact that capital cases are very expensive. Today it takes a long time for a capital case to be finished and there is very few death row inmates are put to death a year. If the courts sped up the cases and limit appeals that they allow death row inmates capital punishment would become much cheaper. Capital punishment could be a very effective punishment if the government implemented it in every state, used it consistently, and limited the appeal process of capital cases.

Capital punishment is one of the oldest institutions in America. Americans have implemented capital punishment ever since Daniel Frank of Virginia was put to death in 1622. Since then more than 18,000 convicted felons have been put to death. (Bedau, 3) Most Americans have always thought that capital punishment was a fair and necessary punishment in America, and over 60% still feel that way today. Despite the fact that most people support the death penalty, there is a large group of people that oppose it. The opposition of the death penalty has been successful in limiting the use of the death penalty as well as the methods used. The government of the United States has brought an end to public executions and mandatory capital sentencing as well as causing courts to give an appellate review in capital cases. Some state governments have never implemented the death penalty, and others have experimented with temporary or total abolition of capital punishment. State legislatures have also tried to develop more humane methods of execution.

Much of American laws regarding capital punishment came from British law, including the separation of types of murder. In the late eighteenth century Sir William Blackstone of England defined all homicide as murder unless it was justified by the permission of the law, done as an accident, or done in self-preservation. The English government as well as the early American government adopted this definition in dividing malicious murder and acceptable homicide. In 1793 William Bradford, the Attorney General in Pennsylvania, divided different types of murder into “degrees”: all murder, which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kinds of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate arson, rape, robbery, or burglary, shall be deemed murder of the first degree; and all other kinds of murder shall be deemed murder in the second degree; and the jury, before whom any person indicted for murder shall be tried, shall, if they find such person guilty thereof, ascerain in their verdict, whether it be murder of the first or second degree (Bedau, 4). This classic definition of degrees of murder allows juries to convict murders of different types of murder depending on the seriousness of the crime. Ohio and Virginia quickly adopted the definition, and most other states soon followed.

The American colonies also inherited the English law code, which contained several dozen capital statutes. American legisl