In 1972 the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty was to be suspended. However, it did not last long, the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 (Federici 109). The Court mandated

The 8th and 14th amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of death under legal systems that permit th

In 1994 the United States expanded its crimes punishable by death to over forty. Europe disagrees with us more than any other country as far as capital punishment is concerned. They want nothing to do with executing anyone under any circumstances. Europe is so serious that they are conducting an international campaign against Capital punishment (Federici 100). Capital punishment is not the only difference, the amount of people that commit murder from the "dangerous age bracket" 25-34 are about eighty percent less than the United States. The Jewish culture also strongly opposes the death penalty (Baruch 52). South Africa's constitutional court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1995 and Russia it in 1999, in hope of someday joining the council of Europe. There are many other countries out there that would like to join the council of Europe. The question is, how long will we go against the rest of the world continuing this outdated punishment? Maybe it is a good idea to do away with the executions, after all we have released ninety people from death row after finding them innocent. The governor of Illinois is so disturbed by that number that he has temporarily called a halt to executions until he is convinced that the system will no longer send innocent people to death row. He has concluded that the system is plainly not working. The people being executed can be glad that they didn't commit a serious crime a long time ago. Before we had the death penalty the punishments were limited to whippings, brandings, cutting of fingers, putting people in stocks, hanging or just plain shooting them. It has now become a law that if the defendant does not understand that he or she is being executed because of the crime he co!

Some believe that Jack Kevorkian tried to take Capital Punishment into his own hands and act as if he were the authority. He welcomed people that were severely ill or in so much pain that they just wanted to kill him or herself. Mr. Kevorkian would put them in a van with lethal gases and potassium chloride. Kevorkian should have personally received the death penalty but instead he received a measly 10-25 years in prison (Lynch 15).

mmitted we must wait until he or she is "restored to competency" (Bright 6-13). In Nigeria people have been executed for something as simple as stealing a bag of seed or a car. In 1995 Nigeria executed eighty-six people, seventy-five of them were for armed robbery.

Many of the non-supporters of the death penalty can at least sleep better at night now knowing that DNA tests are making a difference. There have been people today who have been taken off death row because DNA has proven them innocent. I look at capital punishment as an issue of our National Debt. We have a problem with our debt and the more people that we can sentence to death is the less number of people that we have to care for in prison.

Many citizens have a hard time dealing with the death penalty because they don't believe that it is humane. They probably think of it as painful. Most people feel that lethal injection is the least painful so that is what they prefer. When Stephen McCoy was executed in 1989 it appeared that he had heavy chest pain, he was choking, gasping for oxygen and his back arched off the gurney. It only cost the taxpayers $86.08, much better than keeping him incarcerated which would cost a minimum of $30,000 annually. Another person executed said that it tasted like rubber. All public executions have been halted because the public enjoys them too much. In 1997 Pedro Medina was sentenced to the electric chair in Florida. I guess they sent too many volts to the chair this time because Pedro's head burst into flames during the execution. Bob Bulterworth, a chairman of President Bush's campaign jokingly said;

Julie Marie Welch died at the age of 23 thanks to Timothy McVeigh. After her death Julie's father Bud, told others that we should "hang him."

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3048
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)