Is the Death Penalty an Appropriate Punishment in Consideration of the U.S. Constitution? (Research Paper Sample)
Research Topic: Is the death penalty an appropriate punishment in consideration of the U.S. Constitution, the values we hold as "Americans", and our standing as a leading country in the free world?
1. Begin researching constitutional issues around the death penalty. Good starting points are arguments around the 8th Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause and the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. Also, it is helpful to look for scholarly articles that argue either side of the issue and organizations that advocate on this issue. Amnesty International is a good place to start when it comes to looking at advocacy organizations. Find at least six sources of information for your paper.
2. Develop a thesis statement around the research topic
3. Support that thesis statement by way of your sources
DEATH PENALTY
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The death penalty is a definitive punishment. Therefore, there is no harsher punishment compared to the punishment of death. Approximately, fifty-eight countries embrace the penalty of death. One of the fifty-eight nations is the United States of America, which supports the ideologies of the death penalty. For that reason, the United States ought to utilize the death penalty if one submits first-degree murder. People that have confidence in the death penalty accept that the death penalty will discourage killers. Hence, this article will be contending that the death penalty does not deter murders and crooks; instead, the United States must outlaw the death penalty practice.[Sarat, Austin. From lynch mobs to the killing state]
The practice of death penalty punishment has changed significantly. During the nineteenth century, the death penalty began to lose ubiquity. All States in America never committed executions publicly. The first was Pennsylvania in adopting this trend. In the long run, other States also revoked the death penalty altogether. Currently, fourteen out of fifty states in America never implement death penalty practices. These states are North Dakota, Wisconsin, New York, Minnesota, West Virginia, Alaska, Vermont, Rhone Island, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, and New Mexico.[Bedau, Hugo Adam, and Paul G. Cassell, eds. Debating the death penalty]
Moreover, cases concerning the death penalty are subjected to the Supreme Court for further ruling. The death penalty damaged the eighth revisions and that the death penalty is unusual and cruel. For instance, Furman v. Georgia effectively carried a short end to the death penalty for a long time in 1972. The death penalty was restored with the execution of Gary Gillmore on January 17, 1977.[Shatz, Steven F. "The American Death Penalty] [National Research Council, Daniel S. Nagin, and John V. Pepper. Deterrence and the death penalty.]
Regardless of everything, the United States implements the punishments of the death penalty despite limitations. For instance, the United States government cannot execute intellectual handicap and should execute adolescents. The United States presently has six different ways to implement deadly infusions such as hanging, a firing squad, lethal gas, electrocution, and lethal injection. Strategies tend to differ from one state to another. Even though the United States, the death penalty executions are declining, in contrast with the past.[National Research Council, Daniel S. Nagin, and John V. Pepper. Deterrence and the death penalty.] [Shatz, Steven F. "The American Death Penalty]
Those that are for the death penalty assert that the death penalty will fill in as discouragement and is the main route for reprisal against killers. The two issues are profoundly begging to be proven wrong and have been a subject of analysis.[Bedau, Hugo Adam, and Paul G. Cassell, eds. Debating the death penalty]
Punishment as a discouragement has been an objective for a very long time. This idea accomplishes work; rather, it ought to apply to all criminals. It is productive prevention against crooks. Implementing the punishment of the death penalty, the rate of brutal wrongdoings will diminish. Fierce wrongdoing has declined around eleven percent, with murder indicating the most significant decrease at considerably over twenty percent. Therefore, to some extent, it happened due to the positive sign that the death penalty sent to violent murderers and criminals. There is a tremendous measure of clashing proof from comparable examinations done currently and before.[National Research Council, Daniel S. Nagin, and John V. Pepper. Deterrence and the death penalty.]
Retaliation has been an objective for punishment. Consistently if an executioner is executed, at that point, there would be no more killings. American culture appears to support retaliation. When somebody ends a real existence, the equalization of equity is upset. Except if that equalization is reestablished, society capitulates to a standard of brutality. The taking of the killer's life reestablishes the parity and permits society to show that murder is unbearable wrongdoing, which will be rebuffed in-kind. Therefore, this belief system has numerous blemishes, chiefly with decent quality issues.[Sarat, Austin. From lynch mobs to the killing state]
The death penalty ought to be a deterrence; however, this neglect to exhibit how the data was acquired. The statistical data could have differed. For instance, various genuine mistakes in late prevention contemplate, including ill-advised factual investigations. They were missing information and factors that are important to give a full image of the criminal equity framework. Therefore, these blemishes and oversights in a group of logical proof render it untrustworthy as a reason for law or approach that produces life-and-death choices.[National Research Council, Daniel S. Nagin, and John V. Pepper. Deterrence and the death penalty.] [Bedau, Hugo Adam, and Paul G. Cassell, eds. Debating the death penalty]
Furthermore, the death penalty is a decent discouragement against fierce violations and murders. Without the death penalty, have had lower murder rates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In their seventeen-year-old examination, states without the death penalty demonstrated a 40% diminishing in murder rates. New York has now nullified the death penalty, and their homicide rate had reduced contrasted with when the state was all the while implementing the death penalty. Furthermore, after the abolishment of the death penalty punishment, there was a four percent decline in their homicide rates.[Shatz, Steven F. "The American Death Penalty]
The reason behind why the death penalty does not fill in as prevention is that wrongdoers do not believe they will be caught. Consistently, nobody would submit a homicide if one knew he/she was to be executed. Deterrence is a mental procedure. In this way, if a guilty party does not believe that a genuine hazard is available, there will be no deterrence.[National Research Council, Daniel S. Nagin, and John V. Pepper. Deterrence and the death penalty.]
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