A thirty-five year old white male kidnaps and rapes two sisters, one nine years old and the other twelve. The man then brutally murders the two sisters, letting one watch as the other one was killed. The man leaves the bloody and beaten girls dead on their front porch. Does this man deserve to die? Capital punishment, if applied in this hypothetical situation, would serve its purpose in getting retribution for this crime. Capital punishment is a controversial subject but is an effective punishment for serious crimes such as this.Right now, only one percent of murderers who have committed serious crimes such as this are on death row. Every nation with industrial democracies has abolished the death penalty, excluding Japan and the United States, (Honeyman and Ogloff, 197). Nearly half of the countries of the world (close to eighty) have abolished the death penalty. Almost the same number of countries chooses to keep it as a punishment. Eighty percent of death penalty sentences are carried out on cases involving white victims, regardless of the guilty partys race. Opponents argue that capital punishment is not effective and innocent men may be murdered. They may also argue that it is not fairly administered between the races. It can also be argued that it violates the 8th amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment, and also the 14th amendment, by taking away life. But supporters can argue that the death penalty does not offend any amendments because it is a suitable punishment and the offenders went through due process of law.The early, barbaric methods of execution included crucifixion, boiling in oil, drawing and quartering, impalement, beheading, crushing, stoning, and even burning alive. Those barbaric methods are now outlawed everywhere in the world, excluding beheadings in France which are still occasionally used today, and stoning and beheading in strictly Islamic countries. Firing ...
