Cruel Choice: The Ethics and Morality of the Death Penalty (original) (raw)

Capital Punishment in the United States: An Overview

The primary focus of this paper is to assess the impact of the death penalty system on American society. From its origins in the colonial era, to the varying methods used over the period time; coupled with some current statistics of the general demographics within it, to a neutral outlook on the endless debate regarding the matter, this paper attempts to provide a succinct overview of the topic and its entirety.

The Societal Impact of Capital Punishment and Its Future Role in Modern Day America

2021

Capital punishment has been a well-established, although extremely controversial, practice throughout American history. It has been the subject of much criticism and debate both nationally and globally, dating back to ancient times. This study intends to research the historical, legal, and social changes of capital punishment in the United States that have occurred since the dawn of the practice in order to detect any trends, and if so, whether these trends allow a realistic prediction of the future of capital punishment. The chronology of capital punishment is first examined in this study in order to indicate that the controversy surrounding the subject is not a recent matter. The trend of increasing restrictions on capital punishment from the Supreme Court is then analyzed in order to establish the probability of its bleak future. This study then demonstrates that evolving standards of decency have contributed to a shift in the language surrounding the capital punishment debate. C...

The Death Penalty in the Twenty-First Century

American …, 1995

This conference could not be more timely. We have the best experts in the country here to discuss not just the law of the death penalty, but the politics, the media, and what the death penalty means in society. I would like to now introduce my esteemed colleague, Ira Robbins, who will give a brief opening address this morning. II. THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: QUESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS PROF. ROBBINS: Good morning. As Dean Raskin properly pointed out, the death penalty is a hot topic, and maybe it always will be. It is a topic of debate in most state legislatures. The Supreme Court continues to develop death penalty jurisprudence every Term.' And it is a regular part of the rhetoric of political campaigns in almost every jurisdiction at almost every level of government. Here are some very recent death penalty items in the news: * This week, the State of Illinois held its first double execution in more than forty years. 5 * This week, in the District of Columbia, a non-death penalty jurisdiction, the United States Attorney, who earlier had decided not to seek the death penalty under new federal law in a particular case, was persuaded by the Justice Department to reverse his decision. 6 * A few weeks ago, the State of New York became the thirtyeighth state to enact a death penalty in an extremely complicated, thirty-one page statute. 7 Within days, the District Attorney for the Bronx announced that he would not seek the death penalty in any case, but rather, in his discretion, would ask for 4. See WELSH S. WHITE, THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE NINETIES: AN EXAMINATION OF THE MODERN SYSTEM OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 28 n.64 (1991) (listing recent Supreme Court death penalty cases); Stephen Gilles, Proving the Prejudice of Death-Quali/ed Juries AfterAdams v. Texas, 47 U.

Current Issues and Controversies in Capital Punishment

American Journal of Criminal Justice, 2014

It is our pleasure to introduce you to our special issue on "Current Issues and Controversies in Capital Punishment". Capital punishment continues to be one of the most highly debated and polarizing public policies issues in the United States. But, the number of individuals on death row has reached an almost twenty year low, many states have moratoriums on capital punishment, while others have repealed the use of the death penalty altogether (Death Penalty Information Center, 2014, 2013a). At the same time, thirty-two states continue to use capital punishment and as of this writing, twenty individuals have been executed in 2014 (Death Penalty Information Center, 2013b). Social science research often enters the capital punishment debate through studies examining the influence of legal and extralegal characteristics on prosecutorial decisions to seek the death penalty (e.g.,

The Death Penalty in the United States: A Crisis of Conscience

Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 2004

The articles in this issue discuss many appellate court decisions that turned on due process problems in the guilt and penalty phases of capital murder trials and the troubling role of race in capital prosecutions. Governor Ryan of Illinois cited many of these issues when he declared a moratorium on the death penalty and appointed a blue-ribbon panel to study the prosecution of capital murder in 2000. Governor Ryan commuted the sentences of all Illinois death row inmates in January 2003, in part, because the legislature was unable to address these issues that again appeared in the panel's report. These issues raise serious questions about the reliability of the capital murder system and recommend a continued public debate about its fairness.

The Death Penalty: Three (of Four) New Perspectives

International Symposium on Violence Reduction in Theory & Practice, presented by the Colloquium on Violence & Religion at Emory University, June 3-5, 1999, 2007

While it may be painfully obvious that the practice of the death penalty is a scapegoating mechanism, using the selection of a few people from a larger population of putative murderers for state-sanctioned execution, whether there are any strictly legal consequences of that fact have not been considered by lawyers or addressed by the legal system. I expand on the view, not original to myself, that the death penalty, as a ritual which is religious by its character and ancestry, violates the First Amendment proscription against the “establishment of religion.” This is not only an argument for courts to consider, it is a question for our society to consider in understanding its craving for the death penalty.

Capital Punishment and the Citizen-Subject

American Literary History, 2015

So much has been written and said on the subject of capital punishments," opined the Philadelphia Repertory in 1812, "that it looks almost like presumptive vanity to pursue the topic any farther" (qtd. in Banner 112). By the early-nineteenth century, Americans felt that all points of debate for or against the death penalty had been made. Yet two centuries later, David Garland notes that "there has been no let up in writing and talking about [the death penalty]": "the one thing that is indisputable is that the death penalty produces an endless stream of discourse," and he vividly conjures up the "bookstore shelves and law library stacks" that "groan under the weight of writing provoked by this institution" (9). The groaning in certain sections of those libraries, however, is not only occasioned by the evergrowing number of criticisms and defenses of the death penalty that almost each generation of Americans has produced since Benjamin Rush published Considerations on the Injustice and Impolity of Punishing Murder by Death (1792). The commentary on this debate and criticism of the legal, sociopolitical, literary, or (auto)biographical writing that has accompanied the death penalty since colonial times, and that has come to be seen as "an intrinsic part of the institution" (Garland 14), has considerably added to the weight that makes the shelves bow. What then, one wonders, can three new monographs and an edited collection that fall into the latter category add to our understanding of capital punishment's "cultural life" (Sarat "The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment") that isn't already on those shelves? Like all legal forms of punishment, the death penalty depends on culture to imbue it-or the desire for its abolition-with legitimacy and meaning. The death penalty's legal framework and

Death Penalty: The Present Day Threat to Human Life

MELINTAS, 2014

The death penalty is not an act of self-defense against an immediate threat to life. It is the premeditated killing of a prisoner who could be dealt with equally well by less harsh means. There can never be a justification for torture or for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. The cruelty of the death penalty is evident. Like torture, an execution constitutes an extreme physical and mental assault on a person already rendered helpless by government authorities. The most common justification offered is that, terrible as it is, the death penalty is necessary: it may be necessary only temporarily, but, it is argued, only the death penalty can meet a particular need of society. And whatever that need may be, it is claimed to be so great that it justifies the cruel punishment of death. The death penalty, as a violation of fundamental human rights, would be wrong even if it could be shown that it uniquely met a vital social need. What makes the use of the death penalty even more indefensible and the case for its abolition even more compelling is that it has never been shown to have any special power to meet any genuine social need. Keywords: death penalty  human life  punishment  justification  ethics  consequentialist arguments  alternatives  bottoming up