Death Penalty - An Eye for an Eye

In 1846 Michigan was the first state to abolish capital punishment for all crimes except treason. .
             A few other countries followed suit, including Rhode Island and Wisconsin but, they abolished it for all crimes. Most states kept capital punishment at this time. Some states made more crimes capital offenses so they would be punishable by death, especially if they were committed by slaves. The 1838 enactment of discretionary death penalty statutes in Tennessee, and later in Alabama, was regarded as a great reform. This introduction of sentencing discretion in the capital process was perceived as a victory for abolitionists because prior to the enactment of these statutes, all states mandated the death punishment for anyone convicted of a capital offense, irrespective of conditions. With the exclusion of a modest number of rarely committed crimes in a few jurisdictions, all required capital punishment laws had been abolished by 1963. (Bohm, 2012).
             In the late 1960s, the Supreme Court began "fine tuning" the way the death punishment was meted out. To this effect, the Court heard two cases in 1968 dealing with the discretion given to the prosecutor and the jury in capital cases. The first case was U.S. v. Jackson (390 U.S. 570), where the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding a provision of the federal kidnapping statute requiring that the death penalty be imposed only upon recommendation of a jury. The Court held that this practice was unconstitutional because it encouraged defendants to waive their right to a jury trial to ensure they would not receive a death sentence. The other 1968 case was Witherspoon v. Illinois (391 U.S. 510). In this case, the Supreme Court held that a potential juror's mere reservation about the death penalty were insufficient grounds to prevent that person from serving on the jury in a death penalty case. Jurors could be disqualified only if prosecutors could show that the juror's attitude toward capital punishment would prevent him or her from making an impartial decision about the punishment.