The death penalty is enforced by many countries, but our country does not use it enough, consistently, or in every state. The death penalty is promoted in probably the two most important literary writings that America has ever had or revered; The Constitution and the Bible. Hideous people are getting minimal punishment for hideous murders. We as a nation need to implement the death penalty to stop the reoccurring murders and deter the population from continuing to murder. The punishment needs to be increased and adopted in every state, a punishment that shows no mercy and deters criminals, the death penalty.
Many individuals feel that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it violates the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution in regards to it being "cruel and unusual" punishment. The founders chose to use the word "and" instead of "or." If the founders intentions were that punishment could not be cruel "or" unusual, would they not have said that? Instead they use the word "and." This implies that for punishment to be unconstitutional, it must be "cruel and unusual" (Clark, 1999). Thus, any method of execution (firing squad, hanging, the guillotine, electric chair, lethal injection, or the gas chamber) may be cruel, but if any of these is used on a regular and consistent basis in every state, then this method of execution would not be considered unusual (Lowe, 200). For example, the Unites States used lethal injection (every time) for the method of execution to those who are sentenced to death, however, on one case the judge was so outraged by a criminal's hideous murder, he decided to use the electric chair as the means of execution. If the standard method for execution is lethal injection and they use the electric chair, that would be cruel and unusual punishment (Clark, 1999). Opponents of the death penalty still argue that the methods used for execution, (firing squad, hanging, the guillotine, electric chair, and the gas chamber) are just cruel punishment for a human being.
Rummel at September 28, 2003 09:34 PM Comments If you asked me to identify the biggest single problem we had with our justice system, I'd probably surprise the heck out of you by saying that it's that our prison conditions are inhumane. ... Passing a law requiring this-or-that in the criminal justice system won't make the money magically appear. ...
