Capital Punishment has NO Place in Civilized Society :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

Capital Punishment has no Place in Civilized Society Since our nations founding, the government -- colonial, federal and defer --has punished off and, until recent years, rape with the ultimate sanctiondeath.  More than 13,000 people puddle been legally executed since colonial times,most of them in the early 20th Century.  By the 1930s, as many as 150 peoplewere executed each year.  However, public outrage and legal challenges causedthe practice to wane.  By 1967, capital punishment had nearly halted in theUnited States, pending the outcome of several court challenges. In 1972, in _Furman v. Georgia_, the Supreme Court invalidated hundreds ofscheduled executions, declaring that then existing state laws were applied in anarbitrary and capricious dash and, thus, violated the Eighth Amendmentsprohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fourteenth Amendmentsguarantees of equal protection of the laws and due process.  plainly in 1976, in _Gr egg v. Georgia_, the Court resuscitated the death penalty It ruled that thepenalty does not invariably violate the Constitution if administered in amanner designed to guard against arbitrariness and discrimination.  Severalstates promptly passed or reenacted capital punishment laws. Thirty-seven states now have laws authorizing the death penalty, as does themilitary.  A dozen states in the Middle West and Northeast have abolishedcapital punishment, two in the last century (Michigan in 1847, Minnesota in1853).  Alaska and Hawaii have never had the death penalty. Most executions havetaken place in the states of the Deep South. More than 2,000 people ar on death row today.  close to all are poor, asignificant number are mentally retarded or otherwise mentally disabled, morethan 40 percent are African American, and a disproportionate number are NativeAmerican, Latino and Asian. The ACLU believes that, in all circumstances, the death penalty isunconstitutio nal under the Eighth Amendment, and that its jaundicedapplication violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Here are the ACLUs answers to some questions frequently raised by the publicabout capital punishment. Doesnt the Death Penalty deter horror, oddly murder?  No, there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime. Statesthat have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates thanstates without such laws.  And states that have abolished capital punishment, orinstituted it, show no significant changes in either crime or murder rates. Claims that each execution deters a certain number of murders have beendiscredited by social science research.  The death penalty has no curbeffect on most murders because people commit murders largely in the heat ofpassion, and/or under the influence of alcohol or drugs, giving bantam thought