Capital Punishment, Research Paper Example

The Death Penalty in the United States

The death penalty has long been one of the most significant and controversial social and political issues in the United States. Aside from a brief period in the 1970s when the United States Supreme Court halted executions, the death penalty has been in use in individual states since the nation was founded. The application of the death penalty is rooted deeply in human history, and in the largest sense it is only fairly recently that its use has been called into question by opponents of capital punishment. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the United States signed on in 1948, opposes the death penalty; by 1991the majority of signers in the international community opted to cease the use of the death penalty, with the United States remaining as the lone outlier (aclu.org). Proponents of the death penalty insist that it serves the cuase of justice and provides a deterrent against capital crimes, while opponents counter that it is an outdated and even barbaric practice with little or no deterrent value. In recent years a number of controversies related to the death penalty have arisen, including the freeing of some death row inmates who were exonerated by previously-unavailable DNA testing and questions about the humane use of various lethal-injection drug mixtures.  In the wake of such controversies some states have halted their use of the death penalty, while others have continued with –and in some cases even stepped up- their rate of executions. This paper examines some key issues related to the death penalty, from its history in the U.S., the controversies surrounding the issue, and the future of capital punishment.

The legal system in the United States was, in the broadest sense, simply imported from Great Britain during the colonial era. Although the legal systems in the U.S. and the UK are markedly different in some ways, they still share a number of common elements. In the centuries since the colonial era the two systems have diverged, but in the 16^th and 17^th centuries the colonists living along the coast of the North American continent administered a system of law and justice that was copied almost entirely from that found in then-contemporary Britain. This British system was exceedingly strict; by modern standards it would be virtually unrecognizable as being appropriate for a civilized society. Capital punishment was not just accepted, it was rather common, and was used as the punishment for a wide variety of crimes. In colonial-era America and across the Atlantic the death penalty was handed down not only for murder but also for crimes including arson, burglary, rape and treason (Banner, p5, 2002).

As the American colonies became the first thirteen states in the newly-formed United States of America, the legal system that had been established on the same principles of common law underpinning the British system began to evolve, while still retaining many of its most fundamental elements. Court systems, jury trials, and other standard components of the legal system in the U.S. were well-established by then; in some ways the most significant changes that have occurred in the centuries since then are related to matters of sentencing, rather than on procedural matters. Nowhere is this more evident than in the use of the death penalty which, in comparison to earlier periods in American history, is now exceedingly rare. Just as British courts in the 17^th century –and later- were quick to mete out capital punishment for a litany of crimes, so too did judges and juries in the United States.

Foreshadowing a debate that would rage two centuries later, however, the death penalty was not used consistently or as often in every region of colonial America or the early United States. Different colonies –and later, different states- each established their own lists of capital crimes, and colonies in the north were typically “more lenient than England,” and more lenient than other colonies, in this period (Banner, p6, 2002). Crimes such as rape and murder were typically treated just as harshly throughout the colonies, but many of the property-related crimes that would earn an execution in England were not considered to be capital crimes in regions such as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York.  Even the treatment of violent crimes varied; in Pennsylvania, with a large population of pacifist Quakers, the crime of manslaughter was not a capital offense (Banner, p7, 2002). Such disparities became more notable the farther one got from the northern colonies, as the colonies in the South were more likely to adhere closely to the British list of capital crimes (Banner, p7, 2002).

Where the northern colonies often took a slightly less harsh approach to punishing property crimes than did British courts, these colonies also took a much harder line against so-called “moral” crimes (Banner, p8, 2002). The societies in these colonies were typically founded by deeply religious and even superstitious individuals, and laws against crimes ranging from sodomy to blasphemy to idolatry to witchcraft were often punishable by death. The notorious Salem witch trials serve as a familiar example of such punishments, though executions for witchcraft and other blasphemous activities were not confined solely to those events. Capital punishment for crimes of blasphemy would eventually be halted, but would linger in some colonies well into the 18^th century (Banner, p8, 2002).

Over the course of the next two centuries capital punishment would remain in use in the United States, and the disparity among different states about the types and nature of capital crimes continued to exist as well. As Westward expansion saw the number of states swell into the several dozens, the differences between legal systems in the northeast U.S. and points father south and west remained considerable. In frontier America, for example, a range of property crimes were considered to be capital offenses; burglary, robbery, and horse theft were all punishable by death, which would typically be administered by hanging. Life was often brutal and challenging in these regions, and stealing a man’s horse was likened to stealing his livelihood (Banner, p10, 2002). Just as the list of capital crimes was expanding in some regions, however, it was also shrinking in others; in the northern colonies the death penalty was being used for fewer crimes, and these crimes were most often violent crimes such as murder and manslaughter (Banner, p11, 2002). The discrepancies and differences related to what sorts of crimes should be punished by death would underscore some of the contemporary controversies related to capital punishment.

Capital punishment has been a controversial issue throughout the history of the United States, not just in terms of what crimes are or should be punishable by death, but also in terms of whether the death penalty should ever be administered. Even in the colonial era some opponents of the death penalty protested its use, asserting that it was up to God, and not human beings, to pass out such a strict form of justice (Banner, p11, 2002). Another fundamental argument over the death penalty is fought over the nature of the punishment itself; is it a form of justice, is it a deterrent to other crimes, is it both, or is it neither? In 1790 a man named Joseph Mountain was executed in Connecticut after being convicted of rape. The judge who handed down Mountain’s sentence was quoted as saying “there are but few men who are made without fear; (Mountain’s execution was) “calculated and designed to put the lawless in fear” (Banner, p11, 2002).  It was for this purpose –to put the lawless in fear- that executions were typically conducted in public in this period of history.

The contemporary controversy over the death penalty remains rooted in those two primary considerations: whether it is ever morally appropriate to execute a criminal, and whether such executions serve as deterrents against the possibility of future crimes. While most research shows that a majority of Americans remain in favor of the death penalty in theory (Pojman & Reiman, p12, 1998; Liptak, n.p., 2007), there has been a notable shift in the 20^th century both in the U.S. and throughout the world away from support for the death penalty. It may not be easy to pinpoint any specific set of circumstances or conditions that first began to drive this change in the last century, but it does seem clear that the international dialog that took place in the wake of World War II was at least partly responsible for providing a context for discussions about the moral implications of the death penalty (Hammel, p22, 2010).

Now, over half a century later, the debate in the U.S. continues to rage. Proponents of the death penalty argue that it does in fact serve to deter crimes; a recent New York Times article examined a number of research studies which concluded that those states that carry out the greatest number of executions –Texas is at the top of that list- do have a corresponding reduction in the rates of murder and other capital crimes (Liptak, n.p., 2014). Opponents of the death penalty question the research methods used in such studies, claiming that there are too few executions to draw such conclusions (Liptak, n.p., 2014). Supporters of the death penalty insist that it is an ethically appropriate means of administering justice and providing closure for families of murder victims and others affected by crime (Pojman & Reiman, p67, 1998). Opponents of the death penalty insist that it is not only immoral, but that it has been and will continue to be applied to innocent people (McBride, n.p., 2014). These opponents often describe the death penalty as a violation of the Constitutional admonition against “cruel and unusual punishment;” death penalty supporters point out that the death penalty was in use at the time the Constitution was written, and its authors and signers did not see fit to abolish the death penalty (Pojman & Reiman, p67, 1998).

In looking for the primary arguments for and against the death penalty it becomes clear that little about these arguments has changed over the course of U.S. history. The death penalty has been in use for virtually all of this country’s history, and it has been a source of controversy and contention throughout that history. The arguments for and against it are both predicated on the questions of ethics and deterrence, and each side in this controversy insists that the answers to those questions supports its position. Considering that these arguments, and the evidence for and against them, have remained largely unchanged for three centuries, it appears unlikely that the U.S. will abolish the death penalty in the foreseeable future.

Works cited

Banner, Stuart. The death penalty. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Print.

Hammel, Andrew. Ending the death penalty. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2010. Print.

Liptak, Adam. “Log In – The New York Times.” Nytimes.com, 2014. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18deter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.

Mcbride, Bailey. “Death penalty drug shortage: Oklahoma resets executions amid drug search.” The Christian Science Monitor, 2014. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0318/Death-penalty-drug-shortage-Oklahoma-resets-executions-amid-drug-search>.

Pojman, Louis P and Jeffrey H Reiman. The death penalty. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998. Print.

Unknown. “Death Penalty.” American Civil Liberties Union, 2014. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <https://www.aclu.org/human-rights/death-penalty>.