Daniel Frank was the first one in the history of America to be legally put to death for a crime. He was put to death in 1622 for theft in Virginia. Capital punishment was used by all countries at time or another. Many countries have completely stopped using the death penalty all together. There are other countries that only use this method of punishment during wartime or extremely serious situations. To this day Capital Punishment is still used, but probably not as much as it should be used.
The first form of capital punishment was by hanging the person. The State of Vermont removed the cities and counties power to enforce capital punishment because some judges were abusing the power given to them. These judges were known as ÃÂhanging judges.ÃÂ Near the end of the nineteenth century electricity was becoming more and more popular. The court system started using the electric chair instead of the hanging method.
Thanks to new technology, almost everyone who receives the death penalty is put to death by lethal injection. The states use this method because people see it as a more humane method of death than electrocution.
Capital Punishment has not always been under control of the states. Throughout the years Capital Punishment has been under many limitations, and they only seem to be growing. In 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights limits who and how the death penalty can be used. It protects juveniles, pregnant women, and the elderly proclaiming a ÃÂright to lifeÃÂ doctrine.
With crime rates rising and more people being put in jail, there is almost no room to hold any more criminals in jail. There have been many restrictions put on the death penalty, and...
Capital Punishment: How We Can Improve
As a purely written product, this essay is adequate, though little more than that. as a matter of reasoning, it is badly flawed.
1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has only negligible bearing on the use of the death penalty in America. It is a declaration, but it is not a binding treaty or other rule of law that compels the United States to obey.
2. The greatest restrictions on the death penalty in the United States have come not from the United Nations, but from American courts, which have repeatedly had to rule that the death penalty was being administered unfairly. For years, black people in the American South were executed in disproportionate numbers because no blacks were allowed on juries in capital cases. Then prosecutors were allowed to present any sort of argument for capital punishment, but the defense was not allowed to present matters in mitigation. Fair? The courts finally said no. At one time, it was not even considered mandatory that a person tried in a capital case had to be guaranteed an attorney.
2. Since the 1970s, the rule has been well established, and there seems little groundswell for changing it that capital punishment should be applied only to cases in which a defendant has killed another person. While it may be a heinous crime, in this country, rape is not a capital crime.
3. The notion that the court system does not use capital punishment because it is afraid to offend someone is a curious matter. Where do most judges come from? overwhelmingly, they are former prosecutors, and the district attorney's office in most states is the favorite route to the bench. Do these former prosecutors become mamby-pambies by going on the bench? Try going to court some time and see how worried they are about offending people.
4. Finally, this writer is offended that judges and legislatures pay attention to the view of the public, which has become somewhat less willing to use capital punishment over the last century. Well, what kind of government do we have in this country. Wasn't it Abraham Lincoln who said it was a government of the people, by the people, and for the people? And if that's the case, aren't judges and legislatures supposed to pay attention?
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