The Eighth Amendment Provisions on Cruel and Unusual Punishment (Coursework Sample)

Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause
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History of Capital Punishment in the United States
Capital punishment is also referred to as the Death Penalty. The term capital is derived from the Latin word for head. In ancient societies, more often than not, the death penalty was executed by beheading. Capital punishment laws have been from as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. (“Early History of the Death Penalty,” n.d.). The first recorded instance of the laws was in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon. In the Code 25, different crimes were punishable by death. In the United States the first recorded instance of capital punishment laws in use was during the colonial times in the early Seventeenth Century. Virginia was the first state to practice capital punishment in the new colonies when they executed Captain George Kendall in 1608. In 1612, the then Virginia governor Sir Thomas Dale passed into law the Divine, Moral and Martial Laws. Based on these laws, even minor offenses such as stealing grapes were punishable through the death penalty. The state of Massachusetts carried out its first execution in 1630.
In our contemporary society today, the acceptability of the death penalty as a form of punishment is debatable. In the mid-1970s, the Judiciary arm of government ruled on its constitutionality. Before then, the Judiciary was silent on the issue for the most part. In 1972, the Supreme Court gave their ruling on the Furman v. Georgia case. The case involved three petitioners: Furman, Jackson, and Branch ("Furman v. Georgia (1972)," n.d.). All three had received the death penalty for their crimes in the State of Georgia. Furman was convicted of murder while Jackson and Branch