Cruel And Unusual Punishment

Over 17,000 people have been legally executed in the United States and there are currently over 3,000 people on death row awaiting lethal injection (“Cruel” 1). At our current rate of botched executions and exonerations, 217 executions of current death row inmates will be botched and 310 of current death row inmates will be innocent (“Cruel” 1). Also, in most parts of the world, the death penalty is no longer used and is seen as a human rights violation. The death penalty, as applied in the United States, is a clear violation of the 8th amendment’s ban on the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause and also contravenes international human rights law. First of all, it is obvious that the death penalty violates the 8th amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments. Do you truly believe that lethal injection, electrocution, being hung, or any method of execution is not cruel? Today, a common method of execution is lethal injection. However, lethal injection has a botch rate of about 7% (“Cruel” 1). An example of lethal injection not going as planned would be Dennis McGuire’s execution. On January 16, 2014, Ohio
Approximately thirty-five years ago, only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty (“Death Penalty” 1). Today, the number stands at 104 (“Death Penalty” 1). The countries that do still have laws on capital punishment are abolitionists in practice, meaning that they have not executed anyone in over 10 years (“Death Penalty” 1). Every year, executions only take part in a few countries, and the United States is one of them. America is the only major western country that still executes its prisoners. From 2007-2011, the United States carried out 220 executions (“Death Penalty” 1). In fact, the frequency of executions in the United States is only matched by five other countries: China, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and North Korea (“Death Penalty”