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What is Capital Punishment?
Capital punishment is a practice where wrongdoers get executed when convicted of committing a capital crime. Capital crime refers to a crime deemed so immoral such that it is punishable by death penalty. The mostly used name for capital punishment is “death penalty”. This punishment came up as a result of the human feeling that some crimes deserve a more serious punishment (Franklin, 1997). Some felt that those who committed these crimes no longer deserved to live with other human beings since they were a threat to other humans live.
Explain whether you are for or against capital punishment
According to my personal feeling, capital punishment should be abolished. This is because it denies people one of the basic rights to live. Every human being is entitled to live. Only God should take ones live since He is the giver of this live. I, therefore, strongly oppose capital punishment (Black, 1999).
Eighth Amendment and its relevance to the death Penalty, and death penalty timeline
The Eighth Amendment to the constitution bars imposition of punishments termed as “unusual and cruel.” This amendment came up as a result of a hypothesis made by Justice Marshall. In carrying out the hypothesis, he evaluated the relevance of public opinion as an element in finding and deciding the constitutionality of the death penalty. Even though, this amendment was made, it has no clear meaning since the extent of cruelty is not defined. The constitutional statement is that ambiguous (Ewer, 1980).
The main target of the Eighth Amendments was to check the extent to which capital punishment was practiced. It was meant to put a limit and ensure even though the punishment was given to the prisoners, it was never done in an inhuman manner. The capital punishment according to this amendment was supposed to be done in a reasonable manner. So many critics have come
References: Black, P., (1999). Do Circumstances Ever Justify Capital Punishment? Theological Studies, Vol. 60 Issue 2, p338. Coker v. Georgia 433 U.S. 584 (1977). BRENNAN - Cornell University. Ewer, P. A., (1980). Eighth Amendment the death penalty. journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Vol. 71 Issue 4, p538-546 Franklin, H., (1997). Billy Budd and capital punishment: A tale of three centuries. American Literature, Vol. 69 Issue 2, p337.