penalty has been around throughout history and has been known for being one of the worst fates a criminal could face. Many people argue that the death penalty is still harsh enough to work, but along with all the arguments, the history, and the different ways of putting someone to death, make the death penalty one of the most effective ways to put fear in the eyes of criminals. By instilling this fear, crime rate decreases. The death penalty has been around for hundreds of years in different forms; it would not have been used for so long if it did not produce positive results.
Capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty, has been noted for thousands of years as a way to punish criminals. The death penalty has been around from as far back as the 18th century B.C. It was during this time, that the Code of Hammurabi contained the first known death penalty laws. Under this code, there was a list of different crimes that would be punished by death. During the 10th century A.D., Britain adopted hanging as the preferred method of execution. It was not until later that methods such as burning at the stake, boiling, and beheading were used during the reign of King Henry VIII. Victims were given this sort of fate by admitting to capital offenses such as murder or treason against the state. It is noted that around 72,000 people were executed around this time. America adopted these forms of execution from Britain during the time when the European settlers discovered the new world. The first recorded execution in the new colonies was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. Kendall was executed for being a spy for Spain. In modern day, most states and countries have abolished the death penalty due to it being immoral.
Many people believed that the ways of putting a person to death were what made it immoral and harsh. Some methods of notably brutal forms of modern execution were hanging, the electric chair, the gas chamber and firing squad. One of the most used forms of execution in the past was hanging. Most states currently got rid of this form of capital punishment; however, the court system still allows prisoners this option. The most recent legal U.S. hanging took place in 1996. A part of the reason that hanging is so despised as a form of execution is because of its history in America. It is most remembered and referred to the lynching of African Americans in the south.
According to Amnesty International, at least 1,634 people were executed in 2015; the highest number of executions recorded since 1989. Most executions took place in China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Excluding China and the US, the remaining three countries account for almost 90 percent of all recorded global executions.
As of January 2017, the death penalty is legal in 31 states in the United States. Based on 2010 US Census Data, Oklahoma had the highest number of executions per capita in the country. Authorized capital punishment methods in Oklahoma consist of legal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, and by firing squad. Death by gas chamber is acceptable if legal injection is rejected by the court or unavailable. Electrocution is authorized if lethal injection is held to be unconstitutional and nitrogen gas is not allowed. The firing squad may be used if none of the previously mentioned methods are allowed (Death Penalty Information Center).
Oklahoma’s Department of Corrections website states that, “Oklahoma has executed a total of 191 men and 3 women between 1915 and 2014 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Eighty-two were executed by electrocution, one by hanging (a federal prisoner) and 111 by lethal injection. The last execution by electrocution took place in 1966.” According to a graph posted to the Death Penalty Information Center, Oklahoma is now ranked number five on the list of highest executions by state, with Texas being in the lead.
Furman v. Georgia was a landmark case in the annals of American Law because it was the first time the Supreme Court turned to the controversial question of capital punishment. In August of 1967, an African American male named William Henry Furman was burglarizing a house when the owner caught him. While in attempt to escape, Furman fell and the firearm he was carrying went off and killed a resident of the house. He was indicted murder and sentenced to death. Previous to his trial, the court committed Furman to the Georgia Central State Hospital at Milledgeville for psychological examination. The hospital diagnosed Furman as being mentally deficient and subject to psychotic episodes. Nevertheless, the court denied Furman's insanity plea at trial.
Although Furman v. Georgia did not completely abolish the death penalty, it placed stringent requirements on death penalty statutes. The Court held that the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court reached this conclusion based on the evidence that the application of the penalty was unequal, often racially discretionary and haphazard. The choice controlled on the necessity for a level of consistency in the use of capital punishment. This case prompted to a true ban on the death penalty all through the United States, which arrived at an end when Gregg v. Georgia was chosen in 1976.
The desire to ban the death penalty in the United States is led by various arguments, one of such arguments being that the government should not be able to decide if a person should be able to live or die. Death penalty opponents also argue that administering the punishment does not deter criminals from committing similar crimes. Even if the punishment did deter criminals, opponents argue that errors in the criminal justice system make it difficult to ensure that prisoners sent to death row are guilty of committing a crime.
On the contrary, supporters of capital punishment believe that the death penalty is the only form of justice that is fit for heinous crimes such as rape and murder. Supporters also contend opponents claim of a faulty criminal justice sentence, claiming that the advancement of technology in DNA testing and the extensive appeals process makes it almost impossible to accidentally send an inmate to death row.
Despite arguments, the question remains unanswered as to whether the death penalty violates the “cruel and unusual” punishment prohibited in the Eighth Amendment. Lethal injected is the most common authorized form of execution in the United States. Typically, the execution of an inmate by lethal injection is a three-drug combination of a sedative, paralytic, and barbiturate. Protestors against the execution method claim that the procedure is inhumane. Specifically, opponents claim that the sedative can wear off before execution, and expose the conscious, yet paralyzed, inmate to severe pain when the final drug is injected.
In 2008, the case Baze v. Rees sparked the argument questioning the constitutionality of lethal injection. Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling argued that the cocktail of chemicals used in lethal injection caused unnecessary risk and pain during an execution. The Supreme Court rejected the claim in a 7-2 decision and ruled that the method of lethal injection does not violate the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment stated in the Eighth Amendment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stated after the case, “Simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of 'objectively intolerable risk of harm' that qualifies as cruel and unusual.”
Despite the years of the ongoing debate, executions in the United States will continue to until the Supreme Court rules the punishment as unconstitutional. Until then, the controversial topic will continue spurring heated moral, legal, and practical debates between supporters opponents.