The death penalty remains a controversial political and legal issue in the United States. Students, read the entire article, then tell us: Do you support the use of capital punishment? Why its a good source: Again, this article could be used for either side of the argument. Given the long delay that had already occurred, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to lift the order so the execution could proceed. Hearst Newspapers LLC, 20 June 2014. Between 1973 and 2020, 173 inmates on death row in the United States were exonerated. It was delayed when his lawyers obtained six more months of review by unsuccessfully challenging the procedures used to carry out his lethal injection. New Yorker, 23 Dec. 2013. Now that weve covered what to look for in those death penalty articles, lets get to some more concrete examples. Pro-Death Penalty article by UCLA Political Science student, Aanand N. Patel for student newspapaer. Toobin, Jeffrey. Over four ATP surveys conducted since September 2019, there have been relatively modest shifts in these views from a low of 60% seen in the most recent survey to a high of 65% seen in September 2019 and August 2020. There is widespread agreement on one topic related to the death penalty: Nearly eight-in-ten (78%) say that there is some risk an innocent person will be put to death, including large majorities among various racial or ethnic, educational, and even ideological groups. Since 1976, 1,336 death row inmates have been executed by lethal injection. In 2006, Dr. Paul Rubin professor of economics at Emory University testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the death penalty's "strong deterrent effect." Republicans ages 18 to 34 are less likely than other Republicans to say they favor the death penalty. Critics cast doubt on its value as a crime deterrent and argued that the courts applied it inconsistently and unequally. The shift is more pragmatic than moral, as Americans realize that our. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty, as it was implemented, violated the Constitution. Under US constitutional law, states have the right to apply their own criminal statutes including capital punishment. It is a good source for pulling direct quotes instead of just giving statistics. A third faction also exists that is indecisive and therefore . Muhlhausen, David B. Republicans are consistently more likely than Democrats to favor the death penalty, though there are divisions within each party by age as well as by race and ethnicity. Among Republicans who oppose the death penalty, about half (53%) say this. And for more on mode effects and the transition from telephone surveys to online panel surveys, see What our transition to online polling means for decades of phone survey trends and Trends are a cornerstone of public opinion research. The divide in support for the death penalty between those with and without college degrees is seen across racial and ethnic groups, though the size of this gap varies. In McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), the US Supreme Court again confronted the issue of race and capital punishment. Why its a good source: This article includes strong points to work from and presents everything in a straightforward way. Anyone can read what you share. The answer was unequivocal: He would stay as long as it took. Capital Punishment refers to the practice where a person is killed by a State as a punishment for a crime. This conclusion comes from careful state-by-state monitoring of maternal mortality, including deaths occurring at birth and around the time of birth. Well, dont worry. Rather than forthrightly opposing the death penalty and attempting to change the law through democratic means, however, Mr. Lees lawyers and others have chosen the legal and public-relations equivalent of guerrilla war. But if the United States is going to allow capital punishment, a white-supremacist triple murderer would seem the textbook example of a justified case. by. Eric Risberg/AP. States and Death Row. It will make your arguments and the support for those arguments much stronger. White prisoners accounted for 56%, compared with their 77% share of the adult population. But as a legal issue, it is straightforward. Choose articles from reputable sources. Or is capital punishment cruel and unusual and therefore prohibited by the Constitution? Or do you think it should be abolished? But as a legal issue, it is straightforward. What role do you think disability or trauma history should play in how someone is punished, or rehabilitated, after committing a crime? Web. About half of Hispanic (53%), Asian (53%) and Black (48%) Democrats favor the death penalty, compared with 42% of White Democrats. Michael Smith. The death penalty has been abolished in 22 states and 106 countries, yet it is still legal at the federal level in the United States. Three Good Reasons Details the three main reasons why people support the death penalty. What its about: This article is the first of two parts and uses emotion more than straight facts. In 1999 state governments carried out ninety-eight executions, the highest number since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. Jacoby, Jeff. California, Texas and Florida hold nearly half of the country's death row prisoners, according to a new Bureau of Justice Statistics report. Along with her BS in marketing from Florida State University and MA in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University, she has spent the past 7 years learning how best to reach and teach people using the power of words. Correctional Facilities Directory By State. 14 Jan. 2015. What other ideas do you have? But Democrats are divided over whether the death penalty is morally justified. A large majority of liberal Democrats (82%) and a smaller, though still substantial, majority of conservative and moderate Democrats (70%) say the death penalty does not deter serious crimes. Across educational and racial or ethnic groups, majorities say that the death penalty does not deter serious crimes, although there are differences in how widely this view is held. These decisions allowed the reinstatement of state death penalty laws. The two other liberals Justices Sotomayor and Elena Kagan were undoubtedly sympathetic. Why? Rate this book. Scheidegger is a California lawyer who is a staunch pro-death penalty supporter. However, a worldwide poll conducted in 2006 indicates that 52% of the world's population supports the death penalty. Cohen, Andrew. Executions in the United States peaked during the 1930s at an average rate of 167 per year. "violent crime has declined 11 percent, with murder showing the largest decline at even more than 22 percent. Justice Ginsburg, who died in September, had joined the dissent. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Does your state or country allow the death penalty? Death Penalty. National Journal. However, Gibson does give some figures in support of using the death penalty over life in prison because, he notes, life in prison does not truly separate the criminal from society due to gang connections both in and out of prison. News & Cases See more. Some of the cons of capital punishment include the following; Death penalty is a great burden to taxpayers financially because the actual cost of carrying out capital punishment is approximated to be 2-5 times higher than leaving the offender in prison for as many . Is it morally wrong? Amnesty International holds that the death penalty breaches human rights, in particular the right to life and the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. What its about: This article discusses the history of the death penalty from hanging to the electric chair to lethal injection. The Economist Newspaper Limited, 26 Apr. Why its a good source: It is an interviewbut not a direct transcriptinvolving one of the most active members of the pro-capital punishment community. It also gives four reasons as to why the death penalty is becoming less favorable: its not actually proven to deter murders, wrongly convicted people have been executed, it has become more expensive to carry out a death sentence than to impose a life sentence, and the shortage of lethal injection drugs has caused some states to turn to some shadier methods of acquiring drugs. The Eighth Amendment, however, prohibits the government from enforcing "cruel and unusual punishment," which several lawsuits have used successfully to challenge certain applications of capital punishment. Do you have worries about the fair application of the death penalty, or about the possibility of the criminal justice system executing an innocent person? The government is granted the authority to execute a person if certain conditionssuch as arrest, indictment, and trialhave been met. Moral arguments. There are states that have secondary methods of execution such as electrocution, gas chamber, hanging as well as firing squad, however these methods aren't used nearly as often as injection is. Capital punishment enables the state to assert its authority over the people and serve in its role as the administrator of justice. The article is very straightforward with little to no emotional appeal. 14 Jan. 2015. When researching a topic for an argumentative essay, accuracy is important, which means the quality of your sources is important. Despite this surge in federal executions in 2020, state executions reached their lowest number that year since 1991. Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. About eight-in-ten White Republicans favor the death penalty, as do about seven-in-ten Hispanic Republicans (69%). In Expedited Spree of Executions Faced Little Supreme Court Scrutiny, Adam Liptak writes about the recent federal executions: In 2015, a few months before he died, Justice Antonin Scalia said he would not be surprised if the Supreme Court did away with the death penalty. Yet, in less than a year, with the promulgation of a . And Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who held the decisive vote in many closely divided cases until his retirement in 2018, had written the majority opinions in several 5-to-4 decisions that imposed limits on the death penalty, including ones barring the execution of juvenile offenders and people convicted of crimes other than murder. The abolitionist movement to end capital punishment also influenced state legislatures. Opponents of the death penalty have also focused their arguments on the mental capacity of those found guilty of capital offenses. The court's ruling is believed to have made proving racial discrimination more difficult. Abolishing the death penalty is the only way to prevent bias in its application and ensure that no person is executed by the government erroneously or unconstitutionally. Arizona 209 . some members of Mr. Lees victims families opposed his execution. Why its a good source: This source gives a lot of specific information about what one state is doing wrong, complete with anecdotes and numbers. The author ends by calling executions grotesque and, as the title suggests, cruel and unusual, no matter the method. With no legal ability to impose a punishment other than execution, some juries chose to hand down verdicts of not guilty, a trial outcome known as jury nullification. 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