Capital Punishment Essay, Research Paper

Capital Punishment

Does capital punishment really help? Many people say that it lowers the murder rate man many think it is cruel to take some ones life. The statistics do not show a decrease in murders where capital punishment is in place. Should the penalty be abolished if it is not helping? Is this penalty effective in putting the real murderers at justice. This can also be used against racial groups such as blacks. In fact the statistics show that more black people have been killed on death row then whites.

Since 1976 more than 450 executions have been carried out. Many court decisions of the 1980s and early 1990s made the death penalty easier and more likely. In 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that opponents of executions may be barred from juries in murder cases. The next year the Court ruled that accomplices in crimes that led to murder may be sentenced to death. That same year the Court rejected a challenge to capital punishment based on statistics that indicated racial bias in sentencing. In separate decisions in 1989 the Court decided that the death penalty could be applied to those who were mentally retarded or who were underage but are at least 16 at the time of the murder. In the 1990s the trend of Supreme Court rulings was to limit the appeals that inmates sentenced to death could make to the federal courts.

Critics of the death penalty have always pointed to the risk of executing the innocent. Definitely established cases of this sort in recent years are rare. Opponents have also argued that one can accept a retributive theory of punishment without necessarily resorting to the death penalty. According to opponents of capital punishment, proportioning the severity of punishment to the gravity of the crime does not require the primitive rule of “a life for a life.”

Legislation signed into law on June 8, 1995, provided the option of lethal injection as a means of executing a condemned person. South Carolina was the 25th state to authorize capital punishment by lethal injection. In order to secure and utilize the controlled substances, the Department of Corrections had to be licensed/ certified by the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Health and Environmental Control and the State Board of Pharmacy.

Chemicals necessary to carry out lethal injection are handled, stored and disposed of in accordance with a strict protocol that limits the number of individuals who have access to the chemicals. This protocol had to be approved by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The use of an electric chair in South Carolina began in August, 1912. Currently, the electric chair is located in the death chamber of the Capital Punishment Facility. This is the same area that is used for lethal injection. A person convicted of a capital crime can elect to be executed either by lethal injection or electrocution. This election must be made in writing fourteen days before the execution date. If the person waives the right of election and the crime was committed on or after June 8, 1995, then the penalty must be administered by lethal injection. A person convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death by electrocution prior to June 8, 1995, must be administered death by electrocution unless the person elects death by lethal injection in writing fourteen days before the execution date. If execution by lethal injection is held to be unconstitutional by an appellate court of competent jurisdictions, the manner of inflicting a death sentence must be by electrocution.

Now In terms of racial background there have been many more blacks then whites killed. The statistics show this. Also many murderers can use the penalty as a way of committing suicide. The last thing that is bad about the penalty is if a false judgment is made and a innocent man is sentenced to death. There have been times this has happen and the state pays the consequence of murdering an innocent person. Or a guilty man is set free. As you can see there are many flaws in the system but as long as the penalty is there they will always be there.