CJA 354 week 1
Criminal Law Paper
CJA/354
Controversy Surrounding the Death Penalty Capital punishment has continued to be used as the major punishment for convicted felons for a long time now. However, it has been a subject of controversy in recent years and has been seen as an inhuman mode of punishment in the modern era. This is because of the various legal challenges it faces and the methods used in executing the punishment, which include the use of a firing squad, lethal injections and the electric chair among others. However, those supporting capital punishment argue that revenge is the only way justice can be achieved while those against it see it all wrong for the state to take any citizen’s life (Neubauer and Fradella 391). Capital punishment hardly plays any role in reforming or rather reducing murders and other violent cases in the modern world. In fact, most countries in the world have gone ahead and abolished death sentences. This decision to abolish capital punishment may have come due to the issues surrounding this system of criminal punishment, with the morality of the punishment. Since the 1970's, almost all capital sentences in the United States have been imposed for homicide. There has been intense debate among Americans regarding the constitutionality of capital punishment. Critics charge that executions are violations of the “cruel and unusual punishment” provision of the Eighth Amendment; while supporters of the death penalty counter that this clause was not intended to prohibit legal executions. In the 1972 court case of Furman vs. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was no longer legal. However, in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the court allowed capital punishments to resume in certain states, and shortly thereafter, Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in Utah. Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States, a separate penalty trial has been required
CJA/354
Controversy Surrounding the Death Penalty Capital punishment has continued to be used as the major punishment for convicted felons for a long time now. However, it has been a subject of controversy in recent years and has been seen as an inhuman mode of punishment in the modern era. This is because of the various legal challenges it faces and the methods used in executing the punishment, which include the use of a firing squad, lethal injections and the electric chair among others. However, those supporting capital punishment argue that revenge is the only way justice can be achieved while those against it see it all wrong for the state to take any citizen’s life (Neubauer and Fradella 391). Capital punishment hardly plays any role in reforming or rather reducing murders and other violent cases in the modern world. In fact, most countries in the world have gone ahead and abolished death sentences. This decision to abolish capital punishment may have come due to the issues surrounding this system of criminal punishment, with the morality of the punishment. Since the 1970's, almost all capital sentences in the United States have been imposed for homicide. There has been intense debate among Americans regarding the constitutionality of capital punishment. Critics charge that executions are violations of the “cruel and unusual punishment” provision of the Eighth Amendment; while supporters of the death penalty counter that this clause was not intended to prohibit legal executions. In the 1972 court case of Furman vs. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was no longer legal. However, in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the court allowed capital punishments to resume in certain states, and shortly thereafter, Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in Utah. Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States, a separate penalty trial has been required