Capital punishment has been in America since the early seventeenth century. The first recorded execution in America was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. Crimes advocating capital punishment varied among settlements during the Colonial period. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, crimes such as witchcraft, rape, perjury, adultery, and murder warranted capital punishment. In the Quaker society, crimes such as treason and murder warranted capital punishment. In 1787, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, held a meeting at the home of Benjamin Franklin calling for an end to public executions. In the fall of 1787, Rush developed the Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. The society was instrumental in the development of the prison syste

e present. First-degree murder involves the deliberate and premeditated taking of a life. Aggravating circumstances refer to those aspects of a crime that increase its severity but are apart from the essential elements of the offense itself. The majority of the population in the United States argues pro capital punishment.

Fernando, Javier. American Justice in America. http://www.miamicity.com/miami/literadeath.html [8 May, 2001]

The first argument the public cites is that the death penalty deters criminals from committing the vial act of murder. It is the fear created by the death penalty to stop criminals from committing these crimes. The prevailing thought is that imposition of the death penalty will act to dissuade other criminals from committing violent acts. Numerous studies have been created attempting to prove this belief; however, all of the evidence taken together makes it hard to be confident that capital punishment deters more than long prison terms do. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the overall crime index has declined eleven percent since 1991 and is now the lowest it has been since 1985. Violent crimes in the United States are at its lowest since 1989. The amount of murders in the United States declined thirteen percent since 1991. The number of rapes in the United States is at the lowest level since 1991, and the number of burglaries is at its lowest level in two deca!

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