History Of Capital Punishment In The United States

Introduction Capital punishment has been a topic that has been talked about for ages. It has been an issue in the adjudication process since the first execution took place in the United States of America in 1608 (Schneider & Smykia, 1991). Today, cases are being brought before the courts constantly, and they are forced to decide what exactly is “cruel and unusual punishment” in accordance with the eighth amendment. This paper will be looking at how the death penalty has evolved and developed in the United States. It will also be evaluating the effects of the death penalty and looking at the issues that are being faced today in regards to capital punishment. Also, does the death penalty have a place in the future for America?
The Past
This
process of taking someone's life in punishment for a crime can be dated back to common law and was brought to America by the British (Constanzo & White, 1994). Over the years, the number of executions that have taken place have decreased. States have slowly began to restrict the use of the death penalty. In 1794, Pennsylvania restricted use of the death penalty to first-degree murder and in 1834 became the first state to ban public executions (Paternoster, 1991). In 1878, the Supreme Court case Wilkerson V. Utah, stated that capital punishment was determined to not violate the 8th amendment. Capital punishment then came to a halt in 1967 when the Supreme Court was reevaluating the constitutionality of the death penalty. Finally, in 1976 Gregg v. Georgia determined that by restructuring the system, the death penalty could be applied constitutionally (Constanzo & White, 1994).
According to Costanzo & White, four trends or phases can be looked at throughout the history of the United States to evaluate the evolution of capital punishment.
The first phase is the reduction of crimes that are being punished by death penalty. Most states that use capital punishment only use it in cases involving first-degree murder (1994). 80% of capital case involve defendants charged with “felony-murder”, or first degree murder (Amnesty International, 1987). The second trend, as stated by Constanzo & White, is the attempt by states to reduce the “cruelty” of executions (1994). These various types of executions will be discussed more in the following paragraph. The third trend that was observed by Costanzo & White, is that policymakers are attempting to make death sentencing as fair as possible (1994). However, Baldus, Woodworth. & Pulaski state that when the victim is white the offender, especially in southern states, still are sentenced to death more likely than when other races are victim (1990). The last trend observed, is that executions are much more sanitized. These events are not as public as they used to be and are done more respectfully (Costanzo & White,
1994).
In the past, the death penalty was carried out in various ways. During the early 1800’s hangings were a common way for publicly punishing a single person for a crime that they had committed, and firing squads were used to execute multiple people (Feldman, 2015). According to Feldman, by the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the electric chair and lethal gas were being used at a much higher rate. However, the cruelty of the electric chair was always in question. Today, only eight states use the electric chair as a backup method (2015).
The Present Today, lethal injection is a much more common way of execution in the United States of America. According to Feldman, in an effort to find more painless ways to do executions, death penalty states adopted the “three-drug cocktail” as the new primary way way of execution. This systems starts with a dose of anesthesia to put the inmate to sleep. Next a muscle relaxer is given to the inmate. Finally a lethal dose of potassium chloride is administered to stop the inmates heart (2015). However, problems have arose in obtaining this drug. Feldman states that the “European Union opposition to using medications for lethal injection has complicated the administration of capital punishment in America” (2015). The United States is having a hard time acquiring this drug needed to do the lethal injections as more and more bans are being put in place by various European countries. As a response to the limited supply of the “three-drug cocktail” states are beginning to go back to traditional means of execution. Feldman discusses various states going back to these alternatives. On January 27, 2015 Alabama reinstated the electric chair as a method of carrying out the death penalty. In Missouri, state legislatures are beginning to consider firing squads as an alternative to lethal injection. Also, Oklahoma has recently authorized the use of lethal gasses for executing death row inmates (2015). However, why are these states so persistent on having some way to execute criminals? Most of the reasoning and justification behind the death penalty in today's society is that the execution of criminals will deter future acts. There have been many scholars that have looked at if the death penalty actually deters crimes and saves lives. In a study done by Kovandzic, Vieraitis, & Boots, the death penalty was found to have no significant deterrence factor when it comes to homicide. They found that much of their research shows that the causes of homicide usually have no influence from the potential consequences of the act and most of the crimes will be committed regardless of the penalty (2009). However, there has been research that shows why these findings are not true. Nagin says in one of his articles that “studies do not take different alternatives to the death sentence into account; no studies consider the potential murderer’s perception of his risk of execution”. He says that studies only look at the implications that capital punishment has on crime and fails to address what not having capital punishment can do. To gain a better understanding he states that data needs to be able to look at how potential murderers asses execution punishments (2014). This is one of the reason that makes capital punishment such a controversial issue in today's society. There is no research yet that proves one way or the other if capital punishment is an effective tool.
The Future As we go into the future of the criminal justice system, the question of if the death penalty should stay around is always asked. Currently there is disputing research stating that the death penalty is good and others saying it is a bad thing. Although, whether a person is in favor of the death penalty or not, what implications does it have on our Country? One of the most important factors for looking at if the death penalty should stay around in the future is what the cost is. Capital cases are unique to the court system in that they have many extra steps. There are a number of unique procedures including appointing specialized attorneys, an investigation of the defendant's life history, and a two part trial including both the guilt and the punishment phase (Petersen & Lynch, 2012). This makes the price of death penalty much higher than other types of cases. For example, in Florida the cost of executing one person is 3.2 million dollars on average (Von Drehle, 1988). Another example given by Petersen and Lynch is that California has spent almost four billion dollars on there death penalty cases from 1978 to 2010 (2012). With the price of maintaining this system so high, many advocates for the death penalty have tried to figure out a way of making this system faster in the future.
Streamlining the system to be more efficient is not easy to do.
The Supreme Court has ruled in cases such as Furman v. Georgia, 1972, Gregg v. Georgia, 1976, and Gardner v. Florida 1977, that sentencing someone to death is unique and requires a “super due process” (Costanzo & White, 1994). Costanzo and White also state that another defence to streamlining the system in that there are a significant amount of cases on death row that are appealed and overturned and that “a streamlined system presumably would allow some percentage of these cases to “slip through" to the death chamber” (1994). This evidence suggests that streamlining the system to reduce cost is not a valid solution. It leaves room for too much error and the courts have made it so that death penalties have to be carefully
considered.
Ultimately each state has the choice of whether to have the death penalty or not. There is no significant evidence on if it will deter crime or not, however, we do know that it does cost a large amount of money. States need to determine if they believe that this cost is worth having the death penalty. As long as the Supreme Court says that capital punishment does not violate the 8th amendment, it will be up to each individual state to make the decision. The system is always changing and it will most likely be much different a hundred years from now as more cases go through appeal courts.
Conclusion
The death penalty today is very different than it was hundreds of years ago. The ways that states are executing inmates is constantly changing. The death penalty is also constantly being challenged and changed in accordance with the eighth amendment. Currently the death penalty is causing various problems for the United States. Individual states are being forced to come up with strategies to beat the limited access to lethal drugs and the rising costs of death row. No one knows for sure where the death penalty will be in the future but for now it is operating in over half the states and will continue to bring different cases into the court system.