Capital Punishment

A detailed Summary of Capital Punishment

Should Capital Punishment stay in effect in this country?

Capital punishment is the best way to set an example for would be criminals so they will see the punishment if they commit a capital crime. Capital punishment is also a way to cut down on the jail population, which is currently over populated by 16% and is rising, which means that jails are be coming overpopulated and can not hold any more prisoners. If capital punishment were used more, there would be fewer inmates on death role. Every time an inmate was executed it would show what happens to people that break the law. If capital punishment were made illegal in all states, criminals would run wild because they would know that they would not receive any type of capital punishment. In the case that capital punishment was to become illegal, the cost of keeping violent criminals in jail would sky rocket and the over crowding of jails would happen even faster. Right now capital punishment is just starting to be used more and slowly the crowding of death role is starting to d!

ecline and no longer are criminals being taken off death role and given life sentences. Also right now new laws are being put into effect that will allow capital punishment to be used more, so tha

In 1992 the United States passed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, this covenant requires that a person cannot be give the death penalty if they committee their crime before they were eighteen. Because the United States was the only country to reserve the right to execute anyone under the age of eighteen, many foreign countries objected to the U.S.A. and ten countries have filed formal objections the United States and how it is handling the death penalty.

There are many criminals that also say that capital punishment if used more would have stopped them from committing their capital crimes. "Had the death penalty been a real possibility in my mind I might well have stayed my hand, I might have shown moral awareness before my victim. Consider the tragic death of Rosa Velez. Who happened to be home when I was robbing her home. Yeah I shot her, but I knew that I would not get the chair," said Luis Velez. If capital punishment was used more this crime would have never been committed and Rosa Velez would still be alive today.

Even though capital punishment was made legal again in 1977 there were still many groups that did not want it to take place and their main argument was that capital punishment did not deter other capital crimes from happening. However in 1985 economist Stephen K. Layson published a study at the University of North Carolina that showed that every execution of a murder deters, on average, 18 murders. The study also showed that raising the number of death sentences by one percent would prevent 105 murders. However, only 38 percent of murder cases result in a death sentence, and of those, only 0.1% are actually executed (Glasser, Jan. 17, 2000, p. 47-49). Layson also took in to account certain changes in society such as the number of youth in society, and also how well the economy was doing during this time. To take these things in to account Layson looked at five different decades when the economy was not so good and when there was a high number of young men and also when many people lived in highly populated areas. The decades that Layson looked at were the 1980's, 1960's, 1950's, 1940's and 1930's. During each of these decades there were different things to compare such as a good economy all the way to a depression. Also in some of these decades there was a high number of young men well other has a very low number of young men. The last thing that Layson compared was how many people lived in highly populated areas during different decades. Using all this information Layson came to the conclusion that using capital punishment deterred murders from happening.

In 1972 the Supreme Court of the United States made the act of capital punishment illegal in all fifty states during this time capital crimes which, but, not limited to murder, rape, kidnapping, and threatening to kill the President of the United States increased by 34% (Reptom, 1998, p. 76-78). But in 1977 the Supreme Court reversed its decision and made capital punishment legal once again, with certain conditions. These conditions were that each state would regulate capital punishment acts that were done in their state. Also when a capital crime criminal was taken to court the jury was given more choices then capital punishment or acquittal. The jury could choose to give the convinced criminal the life sentence without parole, those were the tow major changes when the Supreme Court made capital punishment legal again in 1977 (Fritz, 1999, p. 27).

In the late 1980's the Supreme Court decided to look at age and how the death penalty affects the youth of America. The Supreme Court decided three cases regarding the constitutionality of executing juvenile offenders. In 1088 in Thomas vs. Oklahoma, four justices said that the execution of youths under fifteen at the time of their crime could not be executed. This ruling affected all states in the U.S. because the ruling all states that did not origina

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Approximate Word count = 2794
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)

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