rse of another felony. Aggravating circumstances for murder are defined in the applicable death penalty statute. Circumstances considered for murder include: -The crime was particularly vile, atrocious, or cruel. -There were multiple victims. -The crime occurred during the commission of another felony. -The victim was a police or correctional officer in the line of duty. -The offender was previously convicted of a capital offense or violent crime. -The offender directed an accomplice to commit the murder or committed the murder at the direction of another person. (Flanders 12) In the novel, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the main characters Dick and Perry were guilty of several of the circumstances that eventually led to their demise: -The multiple victims included all four of the Clutter family. -The event occurred during an attempted robbery. -Both were former inmates and had previous dealings with the law. -Dick had chosen Perry for his instinct as a "Natural Born Killer". Further,it seems that both Dick and Perry fell almost directly under the common background of one convicted of death. The death penalty is flawed in many facets. Juries in rural counties are more likely to impose the death penalty than those in urban areas. Dick and Perry were convicted in Garden City, a small to moderate sized town. Both Dick and Perry were unemployed, poor, white criminals whose actions wrecked havoc not only on the remaining Clutter family and relatives, but on the entire town of Holcomb and surrounding areas. This only justifies and reinforces the points stated above that capital punishment is biased, racist, and is harmful not only to the offenders themselves, but to the entire community. Opposition to the death penalty finally acheived its goal when in 1972 the Supreme Court struck down death penalty laws, finding fault not with the theory, but with the method. However, all was lost when four years later, the decision was once more revised a...
