Death Penalty

5 Pages 1214 Words

Four years after the Constitution was drafted, the Bill of Rights was written. It was the rights of the individual that the new government could not infringe on the freedoms. Although the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, it does not exclude the death penalty. Many consider the death penalty to be cruel and unusual, but what’s more brutal and astonishing is the sentencing of juveniles and the mentally impaired to death. In other countries, they will sentence and execute children of all ages. The United States does wait until the child is over eighteen for the final sentencing, because the person must be over eighteen to receive the death penalty and be executed. There is much controversy, debates and court challenges on the legitimacy of the death penalty.
The first death penalty law recorded dates back to the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which was the set of laws for the death penalty for 25 different crimes. In the Fourteenth Century B.C., death was the only punishment for all crimes. Death sentences were carried out by such means as crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement (Dieter,1 of 1) . Depending on the ruler of the times and his cruelty, death sentences tended to be gruesome and handed down for petty offenses. As time past hanging became the preferred method of execution.
It came to America with the first settlers and is identified in the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The first recorded execution took place in Jamestown in 1608. The death penalty is among the most broadly debated issues of all times.
Executions have been different from state to state though it has been practiced regularly throughout most of our history until 1967, when a temporary ban was set up while the Supreme Court reviewed its constitutionality. In 1972 another important case (Furman vs. Georgia) before the S...