History of the Death Penalty

History of the Death Penalty:

Use of the death penalty has declined throughout the industrial Western World since the 19th century. In 1972, movement in America to have the death penalty declared unconstitutional during the landmark case of Furman v. Georgia, which declared the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment. However, after a supreme court decision in 1975, Gregg v. Georgia, which stated capital punishment did not violate the eighth Amendment, executions commenced again under state supervision. (Van der Haag, 1975, 3-4)

The debate:

Deterrence:

There are four major issues in the capital punishment debate, the first being deterrence. A major purpose of criminal punishment is to deter future criminal conduct. The deterrence theory suggests that a rational person will avoid criminal behavior if the severity of the punishment outweigh the benefits of the illegal conduct. It is believed that fear of death deters people from committing crimes. Most criminals would think twice before committing murder if they knew their own lives was at stake. That if attached to certain crimes, the penalty of death exerts a positive moral influence by placing a stigma on certain crimes like manslaughter, resulting in attitudes of disgust and horror to such acts. (McCuen, 1985, 11)

Studies of the deterrent effect of the death penalty have been conducted for several years, with varying results. Most of these studies have failed to produce evidence that the death penalty deterred murders more effectively then the threat of imprisonment. The reason for this is that few people are executed and so the death penalty is not a satisfactory deterrent. If capital punishment were carried out more it would prove to be the crime deterrent it was partly intended to be. During highly publicized death penalty cases the homicide rate is found to go down but it goes back up when the case is over. (Bailey, 1994, 42)

When comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and states without, the majority of death penalty states show murder rates higher than non-death penalty states. The average murder rate per 100,000 population in 1996 among death penalty states was 7.1, the average murder rate among non-death penalty states was only 3.6. A look at neighboring death penalty and non-death penalty states show similar trends. Death penalty states usually have a higher murder rate than their neighboring non-death penalty states. (See appendix b) (Death Penalty Information Center)

Retribution:

The second issue in the capital punishment debate is retribution. The need for society to express sufficient condemnation for heinous murders. Supporters of the death penalty contend that the only proper response to the most vile murders is the most sever punishment possible. Therefore, society should literally interpret the "eye for an eye" principle when an individual takes a life, society's moral balance will remain upset until the killer's life is also taken. (Block, 1983, 112)

Although death penalty opponents disagree, society should be able to express its outrage with a vile crime by inflicting capital punishment. They suggest that they are showing outrage for taking a life by talking the life of another. (Bedau, 1982, 88)

Use of the death penalty as intended by law could actually reduce the number of violent murders by eliminating some of the repeat offenders thus being used as a system of justice, not just a method of deterrence. Modern supporters of capital punishment no longer view the death penalty as a deterrent, but just as a punishment for the crime, one source said, "...in recent years the appeal of deterrence has been supplanted by a frank desire for what large majorities see as just vengeance." (Bailey, 1994, 55)

Arbitrariness:

The third major issue is arbitrariness determined by or arising from whim or impulse rather than judgment or reason.

"From the days of slavery in which black people were considered property, through the years of lynching and Jim Crow laws, capital punishment has always been deeply affected by race. Unfortunately, the days of racial bias in the death penalty are not a remnant of the past." (NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund)

Fairness requires that people who break the same law under similar circumstances should meet with the same punishment, however the justice system is not consistent. Statistics show that a black man who kills a white person is 11 times more likely to receive the death penalty than a white man who kills a black person. And blacks who kill blacks have even less to worry