Seminar on Death Penalty vs Life Imprisonment without Parole
Records say that the death penalty was created or established by the ancient laws of China and imposed by the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon for 25 crimes, but which excluded murder (Burns 2005). The first recorded death sentence was rendered in Egypt in the 16th century on a noble, who was accused of practicing magic and ordered to take his own life. Non-nobles were executed usually with the use of an ax. Legal executions first entered America in 1776 when British soldiers hung a suspected spy, Nathan Hale, during the Revolutionary War. The first to be executed in the electric chair was William Kemmler, who was convicted for ax murder in New York on August 6, 1890. The citizens of Tazewell County, Illinois in 1869 imposed their own justice on four brothers who terrorized them by lynching one of these men. The US Supreme Court in 1972 ruled that state executions were unconstitutional, but legislators lifted the ban on capital punishment in 1976. It ranked with China, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia as nations, which legalize it. As evidence of how much support had gathered for capital punishment in the US, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis' popularity for the 1988 presidential race went down when he opposed
Life imprisonment has different durations in different countries. In some, it lasts till the death of the convict, while the rest fix the length to different number of years, such as 15, 20 or more years. This source implies that the determination of life imprisonment is jurisdictional. Burns, Kari Sable. History of the Death Penalty. Kari and Associates, 2005. http://karisable.com/crpundeath.htm Robert Stroud was the most notable inmate of the infamous D Block at the Segregation Unit of the federal prison in Alcatraz Island (Alcatraz.com 2005). He has been referred to as the Birdman of Alcatraz. Stroud was convicted manslaughter in 1911 after shooting a bartender for failing to pay his girlfriend for her sexual services two years earlier. Stroud began serving his sentence at McNeil Island, a federal penitentiary in Washington, where he proved to be a difficult inmate to manage. For stabbing a hospital orderly, his sentence was extended for six months more and provided for his transfer to Leavenworth. At Leavenworth, he continued to be a huge administrative headache. He committed violations and, in March 1916, stabbed a young guard, who prevented Stroud's brother from visiting him because it was not the appointed date for visits. Stroud was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die by hanging. He was to await his execution in solitary confinement. In 1920, President Woodrow Wilson commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment without parole. Because of his succeeding violent outbursts, Stroud was permanently placed in the segregation unit to serve his sentence in total isolation. He spent 30 years at the Leavenworth prison where he became a celebrity for his bird research and, over the years, became a source of annoyance to the prison management for the publicity and privileges he generated from his bird research. In 1942, he was moved to Alcatraz federal prison where he spent the next 17 years of his life, six in the segregation unit in D Block and 11 in the prison hospital. He experienced the deepest isolation in the hospital ward. He was later transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in 1959 in Springfield, Missouri until his death from natural causes on November 21, 1963 (Alcatraz.com). In his Statement dated March 31, 1998, Johnson noted that 19 of the 28 murder trials held in Bronx from 1995 were found guilty and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The death penalty has not been imposed. He reported that, in the last eight years since the enactment of the death/life without parole law, homicides steadily declined by 70% since 1990 and crime in general by almost 43% in Bronx. Johnson attributed this achievement to his department's effective strategies, particularly its plea policy, gun policy, prosecution of drug gangs and sentencing policies. This source says that life imprisonment is considered a slightly lesser alternative to the death penalty in places where the death penalty is a possible sentence. In the US, life imprisonment usually lasts until the prisoner dies. At times, a life term is intended to exceed the life time of a convict. A person found to be guilty of multiple counts of murder, for example, can be sentenced to 200 years in prison. A life term does not always mean imprisonment for life, as a convict can be released on parole even when he is sentenced to life without possibility of parole. Government officials can grant amnesty or reprieves or commute a sentence. The federal criminal code of December 1, 1987, however abolished parole for offenses committed after this date, and these included life sentences. So a convict sentenced to life imprisonment will remain in prison for the rest of his life, unless he is granted pardon or reprieve by the President the execution of a first-degree murderer. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo could have lost the 1994 re-election because he vetoed death penalty bills
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3070
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)
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