Death Penalty And The Eighth Amendment Essay, Research Paper

Death Penalty and The Eighth Amendment

The expression ?an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? has taken on a whole new

meaning. Lately, murderers have been getting a punishment equal to their crime,

death. In 1967, executions in the United States were temporarily suspended to

give the federal appellate courts time to decide whether or not the death

penalty was unconstitutional. Then, in 1972, the United States Supreme Court

ruled in the case of ?Furman versus Georgia? that the death penalty violated

the Eight Amendments. According to the Eighth Amendment, ?Excessive bail shall

not be required, no excessive fines imposed, nor cruel or unusual punishments

inflicted.? After the Supreme Court made this ruling, states reviewed their

death penalty laws. In 1976, in the case of ?Gregg versus Georgia? the Supreme

Court ruled state death penalty laws were not unconstitutional. Presently in

the United States the death penalty can only be used as punishment for

intentional killing. Still, the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment and

should be outlawed in the United States.

Currently in the United States there are five methods used for executing

criminals: the electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, hanging, and

firing squad, each of them equally cruel and unusual in there own ways.

When a person is sentenced to death by electrocution he strapped to a

chair and electrodes are attached to his head and leg. The amount of voltage is

raised and lowered a few times and death is supposed to occur within three

minutes. Three whole minutes with electricity flowing through someone’s body,

while his flesh burns. Three minutes may not seem like a very long time, but to

someone who is waiting for his body to die, three minutes can feel like an

eternity.

Three minutes is the approximate time it takes for a person to die if

everything goes right, but in some cases it takes longer for people to die. In

1990, Jesse Tafero, a prisoner in Florida, remained conscious for four minutes

while witnesses watched ashes fall from his head. In Georgia in 1984, it took

nearly twenty minutes for Alpha Otis Stephens to die. At 12:18 am on December

12, he was shocked with electricity for two minutes, and his body still showed

signs of life. The doctors had to wait six minutes to examine his body because

it was too hot to touch. Stephens was still alive, so he was electrocuted for

another two minutes. Finally at 12:37 am doctors pronounced him dead.

When a person is executed in the gas chamber he is strapped to a chair

in an airtight room. A cyanide pellet is dropped in sulfuric acid, which forms

a lethal gas. The prisoner remains conscious for a few minutes while struggling

to breath. These gas chambers are similar to the ones used by the Nazi’s in

World War II concentration camps. Fifty years ago, America was quick to condemn

the Germans for persecuting Jew’s, but, today, in 1996 Americans execute their

own people the exact same way.

Lethal injection is the newest form of execution in the United States.

The person being executed is injected with a deadly dose of barbiturates through

an intravenous tube in his arm. This method is considered the most humane and

efficient way of execution, but a federal judge noted that ?a slight error in

dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while

dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation.? Since 1985 there

have been three botched injections in Texas alone. In one case it took 24

minutes to kill a criminal because the tube leaked and sprayed the chemicals

towards the witnesses. In 1989, too weak a dosage of drugs caused Stephen McCoy

to choke and heave for several minutes before he died.

Hanging used to be the most common way to execute a person, but now it

is only used in Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Washington. Hanging is

not a very useful way of execution, because if the drop is too short the person

being executed dies through gradual strangulation and if the rope is too long

the person’s head is ripped off. There is no punishment more unusual then

having your head ripped off, so the death penalty is in direct violation with

the Constitution.

When someone is executed by a firing squad he is strapped to a chair and

has a target attached to his chest. Then five marksmen aim for the target and

fire. Having people being paid to shot at a target on someone’s chest is not

only cruel, but humiliating for the person being executed.

The death penalty by itself is a cruel and unusual punishment, but the

treatment of prisoners before being executed is also cruel and unusual. In

August 1995 Robert Breechen was scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma. He

attempted to commit suicide, but authorities revived him, then executed him

hours later. In Illinois last November, the state gave death row inmate John

del Vecchio two heart surgeries and then executed him in December. Richard

Town’s execution in Virginia was delayed for twenty two minutes while they

looked for a vein to inject.

The death penalty is the ultimate form of punishment, because there is

no way to reverse its effects. It will end up taking the lives of innocent

victims as long as there is fault in the justice system. The death penalty

contradicts the whole idea of human rights. Human rights are significant

because ?some means may never be used to protect society because their use

violates the values that make society worth protecting.?

?From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of

death….I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the

death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now

that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save

the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies.? — Justice

Harry Blackmun.

Supporters of the death penalty believe that the death penalty helps

keep the crime and murder rate down, but that is not so. States with death

penalty laws do not have lower crime or rates than states that with death

penalty laws. Also, by incarcerating criminals for life, instead of executing

them, it makes them think about what they did and forces them to live with the

consequences of their actions.

The death penalty violates our constitutional rights and should be made

illegal. It directly contradicts the Eighth Amendment, which forbids ?cruel and

unusual punishment.? If the death penalty is not ?cruel and unusual punishment?

then what is? Is there possibly anything more cruel then dying a slow death

while breathing in lethal fumes, or anything more unusual then watching people

who are paid to shoot at the target on your chest? The Bill of Rights was

established to protect the rights of the people and now Americans are taking

away these rights from their own countrymen.

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