Death Penalty

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Death Penalty

Murder is unjustified intentional killing. It is not sufficient that there be justification (a sound reason) to kill somebody, the person doing the killing must kill for that reason. Thus, if I should shoot some random person in a drive by shooting, only to have it discovered later that, quite by coincidence, this was somebody who deserved to die, this would not mitigate against the fact that I committed murder. Capital Punishment, legal infliction of death as a penalty for violating criminal law. Throughout history people have been put to death for various forms of wrongdoing. Methods of execution have included such practices as crucifixion, stoning, drowning, burning at the stake, impaling, and beheading. Today capital punishment is typically accomplished by lethal gas or injection, electrocution, hanging, or shooting.
The death penalty is the most controversial penal practice in the modern world. Other harsh, physical forms of criminal punishment referred to as corporal punishment have generally been eliminated in modern times as uncivilized and unnecessary. In the majority of countries, contemporary methods of punishment such as imprisonment or fines no longer involve the infliction of physical pain. Although imprisonment and fines are universally recognized as necessary to the control of crime, the nations of the world are split on the issue of capital punishment. About 80 nations have abolished the death penalty and an almost equal number of nations (most of which are developing countries) retain it. The trend in most industrialized nations has been to first stop executing prisoners and then to substitute long terms of imprisonment for death as the most severe of all criminal penalties. The United States is an important exception to this trend. The federal government and a majority of U.S. states provide for the death penalty, and from 50 to 75 executions occur each year throughout the United States....