These people demonstrated that a trial regarding a possible capital sentence is lengthy and is probable to reflect negatively on the suspect, considering that he or she experiences intense feelings as he or she stands and waits for the jury to decide whether he or she is going to live another day or not. Taking into account the nature of the crimes attributed to a person who is susceptible to be sentenced to death, it is irrelevant whether or not he or she spends a significant amount of time in courts.
Another legal issue that emerges when discussing in regard to capital punishment is related to the influence of constitutional rights in the case of a person who is convicted for serious crimes. "What we have here is a head-on collision between the operating needs of the capital punishment system and the sentiments and the norms of Anglo-American criminal justice" (Mandery 479). Most people would agree that there is nothing worse for a criminal...
Furthermore, the fact that the U.S. has actually seen cases of innocent people being sentenced to death contributes to making conditions critical.
One would need to perform intense studies before he or she should embark on a journey to argue for or against capital punishment. This issue is always going to have opponents and supporters, as it virtually presents people with an ethical dilemma that they need to analyze from several perspectives. While it might seem unjust to put an end to a particular individual's life, society also needs to understand this individual's role as a member of the social order and the damage that he or she provoked to a society that is focused on supporting positive behavior.
Works cited:
Adam Bedau, Hugo, and Cassell, Paul G., "Debating the Death Penalty: Should America Have Capital Punishment? The Experts on Both Sides Make Their Case," (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Mandery, Evan J. "Capital Punishment in America: A Balanced Examination," (Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2011)
Marzili, Alan, "Capital Punishment," (Infobase Publishing, 2008)
McCafferty, James, "Capital Punishment," (Aldine Transaction, 2009)
White, Welsh S., "Litigating in the Shadow of Death: Defense Attorneys in Capital Cases," (University of Michigan Press, 2006)
Death Penalty All indications are that capital offenses are on the rise and the response to this phenomenon has been a cry to impose capital punishment as retribution. Certainly the issue is one of the most hotly debated in the world today; both for consideration of its humaneness as well as efficacy as a deterrent. For the purposes of this assignment we will examine the issue from both sides with the
A good example is the 1985 murder of convenience store clerk Cynthia Barlieb, whose murder was prosecuted by a district attorney bent on securing execution for Barlieb's killer (Pompeilo 2005). The original trial and all the subsequent appeals forced Barlieb's family, including four young daughters, to spend 17 years in the legal process - her oldest daughter was 8 years old when Cynthia was first shot, and 25 when
Murder cannot be a decried and yet practiced by the same entity without being hypocritical. Innumerable individuals on death row have been wrongfully convicted due to any number of reasons. The appeals of death row inmates sometimes never get heard. Those inmates who cannot afford to fight a good appeal are the worse off of all. Because DNA testing and more traditional forms of evidence can be used to
life imprisonment, we must follow common sense and assume that if one punishment is more fearful than another, it will deter some potential criminals not deterred by the less fearful punishment" (p. 282). In an effort to deconstruct the tenability of van den Haag's assertions, Reiman takes the deterrent analogy to an extreme and suggests that the death penalty is insufficient and that death by torture would serve as
Research reveals that those who kill white victims are much more likely to receive the death penalty than those who kill black victims. One study found that for similar crimes committed by similar defendants, blacks received the death penalty at a 38% higher rate than all others (Dieter, 1998). It is significant to note that the death penalty is more likely to be imposed on men than woman. Death sentences
Regardless of social status, defendants who are poorly represented by their attorneys are more likely to receive death sentences than those who are zealously represented by counsel. (in Opposition to the Death Penalty: Arbitrariness and Discrimination, 2004). While death penalty opponents cite the fact that an Alabama woman whose attorney was so drunk during her trial that the trial judge held him in contempt had her death sentence upheld
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