Capital Punishment

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pon by the jury and judge, and then finally decided upon their final verdict. If the crime is serious enough, the person is sent to spend time on death row in a maximum-security prison. The judge then sets a date when the person is to be executed. The person has an opportunity to appeal, which must be granted by the governor in the state in which the person is imprisoned. If the person is pardoned, then they will set another date for execution, or they will spend the rest of their lives on death row. If the pardon is denied, then the person will be sent to die on the scheduled day. Now I would like to give you a few examples of famous, and not so famous cases of people who were sentenced to be executed: · Thomas More: was executed in the 1700s for being a “traitor” to the Roman Catholic Church in England. According to the laws of his time…. The accused man had no “rights” in the contemporary sense. There was no presumption of innocence, and the prisoner was given no opportunity to call witnesses in his defense… Thomas More was convicted of being contempt, and not following the rules of the church. He was sentenced to death by having his head cut off with an axe. After his death, the flesh was boiled off of his head, it was then impaled upon a pole raised above the London Bridge. · Julius and Ethel Rosenberg: This is probably one of the most famous cases of espionage in American History. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted for transmitting Atomic Military Secrets to the U.S.S.R., and were labeled Communist Spies. This case was ended with a double death sentence, they were both sent to die in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison. · George Stinney Jr.: was the youngest person to be legally executed in the United States in the 20th Century. In 1944, George Stinney Jr., a 14 year old black male, was convicted of stabbing two young white females with railroad spikes in the head. Despite his age, he was convicted in less...