Regardless of how heinous the murderer's crime is, the constitution stipulates that "cruel and unusual" punishment is illegal, and because the constitution is written with an assumption of equality, this suggests that the standard applies to everyone. Furthermore, Saunders and other pro-lethal injection lobbyists' opinion that lethal injection is not cruel due to the amount of anesthetic given are directly encountered by physical evidence, such as the burn marks eil notes were observed on the body of one executed man and the lack of execution training that eil argues is commonly practiced. In addition, proponents of legal injection may note that lethal injection is not unusual, in that 37 of the 50 states use this method (eil). But when viewed in globally, the United States, paired with the likes of China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan, performed 91% of all executions (Amnesty International). Thus, among industrialized democracies, lethal injection,…...

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Works Cited

Amnesty International. "Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty." Amnesty International.

October 2007. 21 November 2008. http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-facts-eng

Essig, Mark. "This is Going to Hurt." The New York Times. Date: Pages.

Krone, Ray. "Lethal Injection is the Wrong debate." Name of Paper 14 January 2008:

Like many other of the court's death penalty cases, oper was a close 5-4 decision of the nine justices (p. 58)."
It is interesting to note that this decision by the Supreme Court concerning the death penalty and individuals under the age of 18 would be consistent with the public opinion today that would find outrageous taking the life of a teenager. In this matter, the Court takes away the right of the state to decide the punishment, saying that the language of the Eighth Amendment as decided by the Court in the case cited above applies to young people who have erred in a horribly bad way, but should not be subjected to death.

Conclusion

It is the Supreme Court that is the final interpretation of the Constitution. To date, it holds that death by lethal injection is not contrary to the language of the Eighth Amendment, and that it rests…...

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References

 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5011221625 

Adelman, S.E. (2005, August). Supreme Court Bans Death Penalty for Under-18 Offenders. Corrections Today, 67, 58+. Retrieved March 17, 2008, from Questia database:

However, the reasons why people commit crime are as different as the individuals themselves. Intentional murder comes in two different flavors. The first is the carefully plotted, well thought out, planned act. In this scenario, motivational theory takes over. The person must feel that they will gain some type of value from the action. It may be that they gain something, such as money, or they may feel that eliminating a person will offer them some type of protection. In any case, the person justifies their actions through a perceived reward in the future (Horisch and Strassmair).
In the case of an intentional murder, the death penalty may deter the action. However, several conditions must be met for the fear of death to act as a deterrent. The person must feel that there is a significant possibility that they will be caught and punished for their crimes. In many cases,…...

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References

Amnesty International. Death Penalty. 2008. www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/page.do?id=1011005).

Death Penalty Information Center. Facts About the Death Penalty. March 1, 2009.  

Life and Death: The Life Support Dilemma by Kenneth E. Schemmer M.D
Kenneth Schemmer in his thorough, thought provoking book brings to life the controversial subject of the life support issue. For years, many all over the country have pondered, "What if a person were in some kind of an accident and the physicians told them that they were not going to make it?" And all that he or she could do is just lie there in extreme pain waiting for their life to the end. Or even worse case scenario what if they happened to end up completely brain dead? These debated questions are taken on by Dr. Schemmer in making his point that life support decisions may not necessarily be the decision of the family, the doctor or the patient but by a higher being that gives life and takes life. Schemmer uses these controversial questions in his…...

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References:

Court backs right to die | terminally ill have right to refuse medical life support. (1984, Dec 28). The San Diego Union, pp. A.1-1.

Ackerman, T. (2005, Mar 27). Life support battle shifts / A decade ago, patients families had to press for 'right to die. Houston Chronicle, pp. 1-B.1.

Allen, P. (2000, Oct 07). Right to die upheld despite new euro law, doctors can end life support rules judge. Daily Mail, pp. 33-33.

Dolan, M. (2001, Aug 10). Justices deal setback to right-to-die movement; health: State court bans removal of life support from conscious patients whose wishes are not clear. Los Angeles Times, pp. A.1-A.1.

Transforming Scheduled Death Into Renewed Life
One of the harsh realities of living in an otherwise-free society is the fact that the United States incarcerates far more of its citizens than other leading industrialized nations, and it one of the few countries in the world that retains the death penalty on its books. hen capital offenders are executed, there exists the opportunity to turn this scheduled death into renewed through organ donations. At present, while an individual has the right to say whether their organs should be donated, death-row inmates are considered wards of the state and it is the position of this study that the state should have the corresponding right to harvest their organs as a means of execution in order to save and improve the quality of the lives of others. To determine whether the potential exists for such an approach, this study examines the relevant peer-reviewed and…...

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Works Cited

"Abolish the death penalty." (2011). Amnesty International. [Online]. Available: http://www.

amnesty.org/en/death-penalty.

Beard, T. Randolph, David L. Kaserman and Richard P. Saba. (2006). "Inefficiency in cadaveric organ procurement." Southern Economic Journal, 73(1): 13-14.

Ben-David, Orit F. Organ Donation and Transplantation: Body Organs as an Exchangeable

A person should always have the opportunity to die with dignity and perhaps even "discover the meaning of one's life" as pointed out by Pythia Peay.
At the very least, those that hold contrasting opinions on euthanasia should be able to come to an agreement that medical treatment must never be superseded by moral treatment. Even though the science of medicine is often highly specialized, it must never go against the moral ideals of the terminally-ill patient. Undoubtedly, there are many risks associated with euthanasia, but in the end, it should be the patient who decides. But in cases where the patient cannot respond nor make decisions, a living will appears to be the best solution, for this document clearly states the wants and desires of the person in case their lives turn for the worse and if they end up connected to a machine in order to stay alive,…...

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References

Athanaselis, Sotiris. (2002). "Asphyxial Death by Ether Inhalation and Plastic Bag Suffocation Instructed by the Press and the Internet." Internet. Vol. 4. Issue 3. Article e18. Journal of Medical Internet Research. Accessed May 1, 2005.  http://www.jmir.org/ 

2002/3/e18.

Brock, Dan W. (2002). "Physician-Assisted Suicide is Sometimes Morally Justified." Physician-Assisted Suicide. Ed. Gail N. Hawkins. San Diego: Greenhaven Press.

Euthanasia.com -- Definitions." (2005). Internet. Euthanasia.com. Accessed May 1, 2005.  http://www.euthanasia.com/definitions.html .

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 the process ended without a death sentence (Pompelio 2005). During those 17 years, Cynthia Barlieb's family was forced to repeatedly relive her murder.
hen a person is murdered, it is understandable that American society demands justice, particularly on behalf of the victim's family and loved ones. But we can not advocate capital punishment under the guise of protecting the interests of victims' families, and then cut those members out of the process when they do not support the death penalty. and,…...

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Works Cited

American Civil Liberties Union (2002). "ACLU Praises Supreme Court Refusal of 'Sleeping Lawyer' Case as 'Acknowledgment and Reminder' of Death Penalty Problems." Retrieved Sept. 30, 2006 at  http://www.aclu.org/capital/unequal/10466prs20020603.html .

American Civil Liberties Union (2002). "DNA testing and the death penalty." Retrieved Oct. 1, 2006 at  http://www.aclu.org/capital/innocence/10392pub20020626.html .

Amnesty International (2006). "Death penalty." Retrieved Sept. 30, 2006 at  http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/index.do .

Antonio, Michael E. (2006). "Arbitrariness and the death penalty: how the defendant's appearance during trial influences capital jurors' punishment decision." Behavioral Sciences & the Law. March 2006.Vol.24, Iss. 2.

The trial court was concerned with the State's lack of a written protocol specifying the chemicals and doses, the lack of consistency in its administration, the total discretion give to Dr. Doe I, and the lack of oversight over the doctor. The trial court fashioned a remedy that required the Department of Corrections to prepare a written protocol requiring the participation of a board-certified anesthesiologist, at least 5 grams of thiopental, and certification that an inmate has achieved sufficient anesthesia before administering the next two chemicals. The court required that it certify the protocol and stayed all executions till it was approved. The State submitted a plan, which was not approved by the court. The State then appealed the trial court's decision.
Rule of Law: A State's lethal injection protocol did not violate the Eighth Amendment, because the protocol required a sufficient dose of thiopental to eliminates an inmate's risk…...

It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state. This cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is done in the name of justice. It violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human ights. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner. (Abolish the death penalty, 2008, p. 2).
Despite these increasingly vocal protestations from at home and abroad, a majority of the states in America continue to retain the death penalty as a lawful punishment for capital offenses today. While the trend toward abolishing capital punishment was apparent in recent years, it would seem reasonable to assert that the death penalty will continue to be practiced in the United States for the foreseeable future and…...

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References

Abolish the death penalty. (2008). Amnesty International. [Online]. Available:  http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty .

Bird, D.G. (2003). Life on the line: Pondering the fate of a substantive due process challenge to the death penalty. American Criminal Law Review, 40(3), 1329.

Black's law dictionary. (1991). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co.

Burke, A.S. (2006). Improving prosecutorial decision making: Some lessons of cognitive science. William and Mary Law Review, 47(5), 1587-1588.

Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, warned about broader problems with the capital punishment. "When the law punishes by death, it risks its own sudden descent into brutality, transgressing the constitutional commitment to decency and restraint." He took into account the many dangers of the death penalty and concluded it should be restricted to homicides (Death Penalty Information Center, 2008).
The main question regarding the research for or against capital punishment as a deterrent is whether to continue the death penalty because the findings are inconsistent or to stop it for the same reason. esearchers adelet and Borg (2000), in fact, say that the findings impact how Americans perceive the death penalty. They showed how the conclusions of the research over the past several decades have influenced the debate pro-or con capital punishment. Their literature review in relationship to historical events "suggests changes in the nature of death penalty debates…...

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References:

Berk, R. (2005) New Claims about Execution and General Deterrence: Deja Vu All over Again? Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 2(2), 303-330

Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved May 22, 2008.

 http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ 

Dezhbakhsh, H., Rubin, P. & Shepherd, J. (2003) Does capital punishment have a deterrent effect? American Law and Economics Review, 344.

Bioethics
Ethical Evaluation of Dr. Pou

Ethical Evaluation of Mrs. Everett's Claims

Gert's two-step process Evaluation of Dr. Pou

Nursing Ethics in Emergency

Ethical Evaluation of Dr. Pou

From the contents of the article and the actions and the explanations given by Dr. Pou, it is clearly evident that the Kantian theory of ethics was followed by the doctor while she euthanized the seriously ill patients.

The Kantian theory of ethics was propounded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant which states that the will or intention behind an action is the sole judge of the morality of the action and morality is not influenced by the outcome or the results. The theory essentially emphasis the principles that are followed behind actions and influence the actions and not the end result of the actions. The universal principles that treat everyone equally is the motivating factor for acting according to this theory. Animal instincts are overcome when one is motivated…...

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References

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Clifford J Green, Reinhard Krauss, Charles C West, and Douglas W Stott. Ethics. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.

Boylan, Michael. Basic Ethics. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000.

Everson, Stephen. Ethics. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Hallgarth, Matthew W. Bernard Gert's Theory Of Moral Rules And American Professional Military Ethics, 2003.

Physician Assisted Suicide in Patients With Unbearable Suffering or the Terminally Ill
One of the most hotly debated issues today is physician-assisted suicide. ecently, California became the fifth state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, and there is an increasing likelihood that other states will follow suit in the foreseeable future. The purpose of this study is to determine if the factors chosen have any bearing on those who choose to end their life with physician assisted suicide. In support of this purpose, the objectives of this study were as follows: (a) to research scholarly articles regarding physician-assisted suicide and gather pertinent information into a comprehensive profile; (b) to research whether unbearable suffering is the dominant motive to request physician-assisted suicide; (c) to research whether the race and level of education of the patient are contributing factors when physician-assisted suicide is requested; and, (d) to research whether the type of terminal illness the…...

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References

Bauer-Maglin, N. & Perry, D. (2010). Final acts: Death, dying, and the choices we make. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Biller-Adorno, N. (2013, April 11). Physician-assisted suicide should be permitted. The New England Journal of Medicine, 368(15), 1451.

Black's law dictionary. (1990). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.

Boudreau, J. D. & Somerville, M. A. (2013,April 11). Physician-assisted suicide. The New England Journal of Medicine, 385, 15.

ethics prepared here, is based on two primary sources, (Callahan, 2012) and (achels, 2012). The article discusses the need to legalize and regulate voluntary active euthanasia in the United States (U.S.).
Can We eturn Death to Disease?

Callahan (2012) presents medical, moral and metaphysical perspectives to show the differences between active and passive euthanasia. He is of the notion that even though humans, through medicine, may be able to prevent death temporarily; there exist external factors that are beyond our control. Euthanasia refers to the act of painlessly putting to death individuals who are ailing from untreatable diseases or conditions. Some have referred to the act as a release from incurable, painful suffering. However, others argue that euthanasia initiated by a terminally ill patient as amounts to suicide. This is because it is the responsibility of physicians to treat and comfort their patients, not to use their medical expertise to kill…...

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References

Rachels, J. (2012). Active and Passive Euthanasia. Ultimate Issues in Current Nursing Ethics, 180-186.

Wolhandler, S. (1984). Voluntary Active Euthanasia for the Terminally Ill and the Constitutional Right to Privacy. Cornell Law Review, 363-383.

Paradoxically, states with harsher criminal statutes and higher conviction rates tend to maintain fewer inmate developmental programs because high-volume prisons tend to be run on a for-profit basis that discourages "unnecessary" spending. The most cynical suggestion is that decreasing recidivism is against the financial interests of private prisons and (although to a lesser extent,) those of government-run prisons as well (Schmalleger, 2008).
Other aspects of many types of contemporary criminal trends may also significantly undermine any strategy of deterrence through awareness of strict prosecution and sentencing. In that regard, law enforcement authorities across the nation have catalogued volumes of information about criminal subcultures in general and of the street gang mentality in particular (Pinizzotto, Davis, & Miller, 2007). Urban street gangs in particular have given rise to a culture of remorseless violence and disregard for the consequences of even the most violent crime that largely precludes any real deterrent value…...

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Works Cited:

Dershowitz, A. (2002). Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. New York:

Bantam Books.

Friedman, A. (2005). A History of American Law. New York: Touchstone.

Gerrig, R, Zimbardo, P. (2008). Psychology and Life. New York: Allyn & Bacon.

Capital Punishment: Does it Reduce Crime?
Capital Punishment is a social controversy that epitomizes the axiom "an eye for an eye."

In the United States there are 38 states that utilize the death penalty, and usually for select crimes, including treason, and mass murder. In 2002, 71 inmates were executed, which was 5 more than 2001, and of these 71 inmates, 53 were Caucasian, and 69 were male (Capital Punishment Statistics, 2003).

Capital Punishment has been in effect since the 1970s, despite cases and controversy that it goes against a person's 8th Amendment rights. Nevertheless, there has been changes in Capital Punishment laws and "in 2002 the Court barred the execution of mentally retarded offenders, overturning its 1989 ruling on the matter. In the same year the Court ruled that the death penalty must be imposed through a finding of a jury and not a judge" (Columbia, 2003). In 2002, lethal injection accounted…...

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Bibliography

Capital Punishment Statistics

Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2003.

Printable copy at: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm

Study # 3667: Capital Punishment in the United States 1973-2000

1. The impact of the death penalty on racial minorities and whether it creates a disproportionate number of executions for individuals of color.
2. Investigating the psychological effects of being on death row and the toll it takes on the mental health of inmates.
3. Analyzing the cost effectiveness of the death penalty compared to life imprisonment and whether it is a reasonable use of taxpayer dollars.
4. Examining the role of public opinion in shaping the use of the death penalty and how attitudes towards capital punishment have evolved over time.
5. Exploring the role of international law in shaping the use of....

Recent Supreme Court Decisions and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) plays a pivotal role in shaping the criminal justice system through its decisions on constitutional rights, prosecutorial practices, and sentencing guidelines. Recent years have witnessed several significant SCOTUS rulings that have had a profound impact on the system, shaping the way criminal cases are investigated, tried, and adjudicated.

Miranda Rights and Police Interrogations

Miranda v. Arizona (1966): Established the "Miranda rule," requiring law enforcement officers to inform suspects of their rights to remain silent, have an attorney present, and stop being questioned....