Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Social Issues capital punishment capital punishment "It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another but similars that breed their kind" (Brasfield 46). This is the how capital punishment is described by a prisoner on Texas' death row. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court found capital punishment to be inhumane and cruel towards humans. The death penalty was reinstated in 1976 after the Constitution of the United States was reinterpreted. Of the 90 countries that support capital punishment, America is the only western democracy that still enforces the death penalty on a regular basis. Only 37 of these countries executed a prisoner in 1998 ("The Cruel and Ever More Unusual Punishment" 95). Between 1983 and 1993, approximately 22,000 murders occurred in the United States. Only 250 of these homicides resulted in the defendant receiving the death sentence. On average, 22 convicts were executed annually. Therefore, the odds of a killer being caught, prosecuted, convicted, and executed are one in a thousand (95). Given these chances, a killer must be very unlucky to be executed. For the death penalty to be a proper deterrent, thousands of killers must be executed every year instead of only a few dozen. Even if the death penalty did deter crime rates, is it still humane and just? According to Time magazine, 74% of Americans support capital punishment, but strangely enough, 52% do not believe it deters murder (95). Statistics show that a long prison sentence is a much better antidote than death. The death of a murderer does not bring back the victim or heal the families' wounds. It can, however, offer some consolation towards the victim's family because the murderer can no longer harm anyone. Many Americans believe in the theory of "an eye for an eye." This means that if someone murders another person, the same act should be enforced upon the murderer. Some people may go as far as to say that the convicted killer should be murdered in the same manner as the victim. This may sound cruel and inhumane, but it is reasonable and can be supported by one solid fact. If a murderer feels that he or she has the right to end the life of another human being violently, then the murderer should be punished in the same way as he or she punished their victim. I have always believed that cruel and unusual punishment during the execution of a murderer does not exist. My opinion has recently been changed. There is a certain line that should not be crossed when executing a convicted killer. Unfortunately, this line has been crossed many times. Many cases of cruel and unusual punishment exist, not only to the victims of murders, but of the murderers themselves. On April 23, 1899, a black man named Sam Hose was executed in Palmetto, Georgia. Hose admitted to the shooting and killing of his boss in self-defense during a dispute over wages. Added to this undisputed fact was a fictitious rumor. Supposedly, Hose had also sexually assaulted his boss' wife. A newspaper, the Atlanta Constitution, offered a $500 reward for the return of Sam Hose so that his body could be burned alive. He was captured after a short period of time. Trains brought spectators from miles around to watch the event. Hose, while wrapped in chains, was led to a stake in the middle of a dirt road in Palmetto. The torture was about to begin (Clarke 273). First his ears were sliced off and thrown into the crowd as souvenirs. Then, one by one, his fingers and toes were amputated. Coal oil was poured all over his body and he was set aflame. Only his charred remains were left after the flames ceased. As if these actions were not cruel enough, his remains were sold to spectators. Bones were sold for a quarter and slices of his heart and liver were sold for a dime. No one was arrested, not even Sam Hose (274). According to the Tuskegee Institute's records, dating back to 1882, scenes such as this were repeated against black people approximately 3,442 times between 1882 and 1950. During this time, blacks made up only 10% of the national population and 38% of the South's population. Of these lynchings, 73% were black people. The statistics of the lynchings of white people greatly differ from those of blacks. Of the 1,294 white lynchings in America, only 48% occurred in the South (275). Although these executions are informal, they are still recorded as capital punishment. The statistics of the South's lynchings of white and black people vary because of the racist beliefs in the South. These statistics grossly underestimate real figures because bodies and evidence of the victims were rarely found. The United States has the highest civilian murder rate in the industrialized world. Most of these murders occur in the South; therefore, most executions of criminals occur in the South (275). Just as American society sometimes acts rash and inhumane, America's judicial system has many flaws as well. People are wrongfully accused of crimes they did not commit. Sometimes these people are convicted of the crimes. Since 1973, 78 people have been released from death row after their innocence was discovered (Gross 9). Some of these people were released within a few hours before their scheduled execution. A man should not be punished for a crime he did not commit. Orlando Cruz, a Hispanic man, spent 10 years on death row for the rape and murder of a ten-year-old girl. Cruz was convicted despite the fact that a repeat sex offender and murderer had already confessed to the crime. Cruz was freed only after a police officer admitted to lying under oath about crucial evidence in the case ("The Cruel and Ever More Unusual Punishment" 95). Studies have shown that blacks are more likely than whites to receive the death penalty in similar cases. Blacks who harm whites are even more susceptible to receiving capital punishment. Clarence Brandley was one of five caretakers who became suspects after a 16-year-old white girl was murdered in a Texas high school. Unfortunately for Brandley, he was the only black man out of the five caretakers. When a Texas police officer interviewed Brandley and another caretaker, the officer supposedly said, "One of you is going to hang for this." He then turned to Brandley and said, "Since you're the nigger, you're elected." Hairs on the victim's body were later found to prove that a white killer was to blame. Brandley spent 10 years on death row before his sentence was overturned (Gross 9). The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty estimates that 23 people who have been executed in the United States were innocent of their crime (9). How can innocent men and women end up on death row? Prosecutors, who are elected officials, are under intense pressure to find and convict the killer. Once a suspect has been caught and assumed to be the killer, the pressure is greatly reduced. Then the prosecutor has to convict the killer. This process is relatively easy because the accused killer is usually not wealthy enough to hire a good attorney. The county in which the trial is held appoints a public defender to represent the defendant. The taxpayers pay this attorney, not the defendant. Whether he wins or loses, the public defender will be paid the same amount of money, which is a small amount. This is where the problem lies. A person's life is at stake, and the public defender is the accused person's only hope of winning the trial. The defender has basically no incentive to win the case other than that a victory will look better on his record than a loss. In Alabama, the salary cap for a public defender is $2,000 ("The Cruel and Ever More Unusual Punishment" 95). This is definitely not a sufficient amount of money to be paid to defend someone's life. A trial could be considered unfair for many reasons. If the attorneys are not qualified to try the case, the case could be considered unjust. A trial could also be considered unfair if either the plaintiff or defendant receives too much sympathy from the public, media, or jury. Eleven of thirty-eight states have passed legislation to prohibit capital punishment of those individuals who are mentally retarded (Bishop 4). In 1992, Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, refused to halt the execution of a mentally retarded man. Clinton wanted to prove to the country that he was not soft on crime (4). Ricky Ray Rector received brain damage during a botched lobotomy. At the time of the murder and his execution, he was severely retarded. His capital punishment was to die by lethal injection. In this process, an I.V. is inserted into a vein in the arm of the convict. Anesthetic is then released into the prisoner's bloodstream. Within minutes, the convict is asleep and will not feel anything else, but he is still alive. The anesthetic then stops the prisoner's breathing. Potassium Chloride is released into the bloodstream, and this chemical stops the convict's heart. This is the most humane way for capital punishment to be enforced. Sometimes, however, this punishment is not as humane as it may seem. For Ricky Rector, the process was more agonizing than expected. The medical team performing the execution could not find a vein big enough to hold the I.V. After 50 minutes of searching, Rector could not maintain his control. He knew he was going to die so he decided to quicken the process. He began to flex and loosen his muscles so the blood would run faster and the veins would become bigger. A vein finally appeared, and he was executed within minutes (4). This does not happen often, but when executions do not happen as planned, does it really matter? The convicts are being killed for a crime they committed. If they did not want to be executed, they should not have committed the crime. This lesson should teach people to think before they act. One out of every eight people arrested for murder is a woman (Gross 9). Only two women have been executed in the United States since the reinstatement of capital punishment. Karla Faye Tucker, a teenager at the time she committed her crime, hacked two people to death with a pickaxe in Texas. After her conviction she was sentenced to death. During the time she served in the Texas prison, she became a woman of strong Christian virtues. Since she was given no chance for parole, her only hope of life outside of death row was to be granted clemency by the governor of Texas. George Bush, then governor of Texas, did not grant Tucker clemency despite pleas from Pope John Paul II, churches, and Anti-Death Penalty groups from across the country. If anyone in Texas absolutely had to be executed, it would have been Tucker. If her life were spared because of her gender or religious beliefs, millions of prisoners across the country would have pled the same case (9). Margie Velma Barfield was a grandmother from North Carolina. She poisoned her fiancé in 1985 and was later sentenced to die for her crime (9). Women are not excluded from the death penalty in America. In most states, there are no exceptions and no rules regarding who can or cannot be executed. The Constitution clearly states that "all men are created equal;" whether they are men or women does not matter. The cost of killing is a primary reason that some states do not enforce the death penalty. Instead of execution, these states choose to sentence convicted killers to a life sentence. The price of one execution is estimated to be around $2 million. This cost consists of a combination of fees. The primary reason for the expensive tab is the appeals and other actions the court may take. The executioner is paid between $60,000 and $150,000 per execution, depending on the type of execution. An electocutioner would be paid approximately $60,000. The chemist in a gas chamber would be paid more than any other executioner (Kaplan 29). For one inmate to live in a state prison for one year, the cost is $20,000. It would cost $800,000 for an inmate to live on death row for 40 years (29). If an inmate lived on death row for 100 years, which is unlikely, the incarceration would cost the same amount of money as one execution. So is an execution a waste of money? Maybe it is. Punishments are meant to correct one's behavior. If a little boy does something bad, his parents might send him to his room as his punishment. This punishment teaches the boy not to be bad. If the life of a convict is taken, is it really punishing him? There are two answers to this question. Yes, because the criminal is suffering a punishment that is probably quicker and less painful than the suffering of his victim. No, because nobody will benefit from the death of another person. An option to the death penalty is life without parole. This option has proven to be an ineffective method because some felons are eventually paroled and set free after a "change of heart." Many times these paroled felons have killed another victim after they have been set free (Gross 9). Maybe capital punishment is the only solution for the problem of murder. It does prove one fact: If you can't do the time, then don't do the crime. Bibliography: Bishop, Ed. "Anti-Death Penalty Stance." St. Louis Journalism Review March 1999: 4 Brasfield, Philip. "The Deed that Teaches." The Other Side Nov.-Dec. 1998: 46-47 Clarke, James. "Without Fear or Shame: lynching, capital punishment and the subculture of violence in the American South." British Journal of Political Science April 1998: 269-290 "The Death Penalty." The Economist 28 Nov. 1998: 29 "The Cruel and Ever More Unusual Punishment" The Economist 15 May, 1999: 95 Gross, Judy. "Executions Continue: so does debate." National Catholic Reporter 20 Feb. 1998: 9 Kaplan, David. "Life and Death Decisions." Newsweek 16 June 1997: 28-30 Word Count: 2403
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