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This article thinks that not only the death penalty is Moral but its nessicary and they belive that since it was done ever since the bigginging of written history we should continue practicing it

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Background
The formal execution of criminals has been used in nearly all societies since the beginning of recorded history. Before the beginning of humane capital punishment used in today's society, penalties included boiling to death, flaying, slow slicing, crucifixion, impalement, crushing, disembowelment, stoning, burning, decapitation, dismemberment and scaphism. In earlier times, the death penalty was used for a variety of reasons that today would seem barbaric. Some cultures used it as punishment for magic, violation of the Sabbath, blasphemy, a variety of sexual crimes including sodomy and murder. Today, execution in the US is used primarily for murder, espionage and treason. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are punishable by death, and several militaries around the world impose the death penalty for desertion, mutiny and even insubordination. In middle-eastern countries, rape, adultery, incest and sodomy carry the death penalty as does apostasy (the act of renouncing the state religion). While most industrialized countries utilize lethal injection or the electric chair for capital punishment, many others still use hanging, beheading or stoning. In some states in the US, death by firing squad is also still used.

The Death Debate
The fight between those who support capital punishment and those who oppose it is rather simple compared to many other debates. Those in support of capital punishment believe it deters crimes and, more often than not believe that certain crimes eliminate one's right to life. Those who oppose capital punishment believe, first and foremost, that any person, including the government, has no right to take a life for any reason. They often believe that living with one's crimes is a worse punishment than dying for them, and that the threat of capital punishment will not deter a person from committing a crime. They also believe that the risk of executing an innocent person is too high. The debate between these two sides is often heated, with both sides protesting outside court houses and jails during high profile cases. However, a worldwide poll conducted in 2006 indicates that 52% of the world's population supports the death penalty. In the US, that number is 65%.

Costs and Procedures
On average, it costs $620,932 per trial in federal death cases, which is eight times higher than that of a case where the death penalty is not sought. When including appeals, incarceration times and the actual execution in a death penalty case, the cost is closer to $3 million per inmate. However, court costs, attorney fees and incarceration for life only totals a little over $1 million. Recent studies have also found that the higher the cost of legal counsel in a death penalty case the less likely the defendant is to receive the death penalty, which calls the fairness of the process into question.
A capital punishment case begins with a trial in front of a grand jury (typically 23 people) where the prosecutor makes it known before the trial that they are seeking the death penalty. The first part of the trial is the guilt phase, where both sides of the case is presented and the jury determines whether the defendant is guilty of the crime they are charged with. Following a charge of guilty, the next phase of the trial is the penalty trial. Both sides again present their case for punishment in front of the jury, and the jury makes a recommendation and the judge pronounces the sentence. In some states, the judge does not have to follow jury recommendation, though in most he or she does. Following the sentencing, the decision must go through direct review and state review, which acts as an appeal process for the convict. If the sentence makes it past all of the reviews, the inmate sentence is set in stone barring involvement of the President. The prisoner typically stays on death row for many years before their sentence is carried out, and in many states less than half of those sentenced to death actually receive their punishment before dying of natural causes.
Famous Cases, Statistics and Futher Reading Criminal Justice Information by State

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Criminal Justice: Capital Punishment Focus

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The formal execution of criminals has been used in nearly all societies since the beginning of recorded history. Before the beginning of humane capital punishment used in today's society, penalties included boiling to death, flaying, slow slicing, crucifixion, impalement, crushing, disembowelment, stoning, burning, decapitation, dismemberment and scaphism.

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Five reasons to abolish the death penalty

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Killers, murderers, terrorists, drug lords. Who cares if they are faced with death, right? But what if you couldn’t be sure of their guilt?

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Some Southern and far West states are coming to extreme lengths to do exactly what they want not what is morally right. In Arkansas the governent wants to execute 4 men in only 8 days including 2 in only 1 night. in my opinion that is just absurd

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Despite the shocking spectacle of assembly-line executions in Arkansas earlier this year, the use of the death penalty is in decline. Arkansas's willingness to execute four men in eight days, including two in a single night, demonstrates the extreme lengths to which proponents of capital punishment will go to retain this brutal practice-and why it must be abolished.

The death penalty is now largely isolated to only a small handful of states which actively use it, but despite this diminished use, the flaws and failures of capital punishment are more apparent than ever.

The death penalty does not improve public safety

We all want a criminal justice system that's sensible, effective, and creates a safe society with less crime-and evidence shows that the death penalty has no impact on public safety. Stats from the Death Penalty Information Center indicate that in the past forty years, there have been 1,184 executions in the South compared to just four in the Northeast, and yet homicide figures in 2015 were nearly 70 percent higher in the Southern states.

We need to take a closer look at what works and what doesn't, and use a common-sense approach to improve public safety. By abolishing the death penalty, we could focus our time, energy and resources on supporting victims and families harmed by violence. We must ensure that all victims are treated fairly and with respect. If you listen to victims speak about their experience with the death penalty, you find that virtually all are frustrated with the current system. There's no such thing as quick and easy in a system that's supposed to be deliberative to ensure that the innocent aren't punished along with the guilty-and even then the system gets it wrong too often.

Moreover, all victims are not treated fairly. Survivors of homicide who oppose the death penalty report being treated like second-class victims by some prosecutors. Questions about the death penalty divide families needlessly. Further, there are stark disparities in how victims are treated based on race. A study by the Vera Institute in 2014 found that victim assistance services including treatment for trauma are routinely unavailable to young African American men. Despite their ordeal, the system is more likely to treat African American men as perpetrators or even complicit in their victimization. We need to take the focus, attention and resources that the death penalty steals to focus our hearts and hands on creating a culture of healing and support for victims of homicide and violence.

The death penalty does not address the root causes of crime

Our focus needs to be on preventing crime and violence. We know that to reduce crime and violence we must focus on the root causes of crime. Crime happens when other issues are neglected such as mental health, housing, access to education and sustainable employment options. When these issues are addressed, communities become safe and vibrant, and when you look at those on death row in the United States, you see the costly evidence of neglecting children, families and communities at risk. We can help move communities and our nation forward by addressing the root causes of crime to create strong, healthy families and our communities.

Most law enforcement officials agree that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime. Perpetrators rarely consider the consequences when they engage in violence-if they did they wouldn't commit crimes in the first place. The few people who might think about the consequences also think they won't get caught, so the death penalty isn't a factor.

These same people rank the death penalty last among their priorities for crime reduction. We already know that executions have no impact in reducing crime, so shouldn't we get ahead of the problem? Shouldn't we provide positive interventions for people and communities at risk? A brutal execution in the middle of the night won't prevent the next tragedy.

The death penalty is not applied fairly across the country

In 2016, 30 death sentences were imposed across the United States, making it the lowest number in 40 years. In fact, the death penalty is in decline by every measure; only 20 executions took place last year and just four states, Georgia, Texas, Florida and Missouri, were responsible for 90 percent of them. The death penalty has also been eliminated in six states and four more states have put a moratorium on executions. Overall, only a handful of counties (just two percent) impose death sentences in the U.S.

As use of the death penalty declines, we must pay attention to those who are selected for this severe punishment. Being sentenced to death doesn't depend on whether you've committed the worst crime, but where the crime is committed. People who live in the South are more likely to receive death sentences than people in other parts of the country-even when they commit the same crime. One of the reasons that the death penalty is used more in the South is because these states are notorious for failing to provide public defenders to those who can't afford one, even though the Constitution requires them to do so. And, often, whether you're sentenced to death or not depends on whether you had a good lawyer.

Issues of racial inequality also continue to plague our criminal justice system. Activists challenging police shootings of unarmed African American men and the disparate treatment of victims based on race provide modern day examples of the way in which racial bias continues to infect our justice system, including the death penalty. While we strive to address these problems, the best way to make sure that there's fairness is to abolish the death penalty in all states.

We can change

We're all more than the worst thing we've ever done, because all human beings are capable of change. If our criminal justice system is to change, it should be designed not just to punish, but to also rehabilitate those who've committed crimes. There should always be the opportunity for rehabilitation, redemption and grace. We have the capacity to hold people accountable and separate dangerous people from society without foreclosing that opportunity.

So, do we continue down a path that has failed repeatedly to produce results? Do we continue with an institution that inflicts harm? The death penalty traumatizes everyone it touches: victim survivors, prosecutors, defense lawyers, prison workers and families. Former wardens, guards and execution team members report severe damage to their mental and physical health because of the stress and trauma of participating in executions and killing prisoners. It doesn't have to be this way. The death penalty is an old-fashioned, outdated, harmful practice, and it must be abolished.

or pick up the limited edition and join our efforts to put the focus on healing. We don't need to kill people to teach people that killing is wrong.

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national coalition to abolish the death penalty

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Despite the shocking spectacle of assembly-line executions in Arkansas earlier this year, the use of the death penalty is in decline. Arkansas's willingness to execute four men in eight days, including two in a single night, demonstrates the extreme lengths to which proponents of capital punishment will go to retain this brutal practice-and why it must be abolished.

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This is the San Quintin gas chamber a punishment that used to be given out to inmates on death row the former warden announced how cruel and unusal this was and now dennounces using death as a punishmnet

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In Utah the firing squad is still a legal punishment for any deathrow inmate

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Hanging was a perferred method for the constitutional America era

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Lethal injection is now the most commonly used death punishment in recent news in been a politcal debate on why its inhumane

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Gerorge Stinney was the youngest person ever to be given the death sentense and was killed (June 16 1944)  by the electric chair. He was only 14. In 2014 he was later proven to be innocent after a judge ruled he had an unfair trial

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Family seeks justice 70 years after execution

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Estimations say for the next 5 years it will costs 5 billion dollars to continue the punishment

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1 in 25 poeple on death row are innnocent of their charges

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In Old Testament times, the death penalty was used as the punishment for murder (Genesis 9:6). But death was also the punishment for a number of other offenses, such as eating leavened bread during the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:15), being a stubborn child (Deuteronomy 21:21), picking up sticks on the Sabbath day (Numbers 15: 32-36), insulting your parents (Exodus 21:17), going to the Tabernacle if you are not a priest (Numbers 1:51), and ignoring the verdict of a judge or priest (Deuteronomy 17:12). Today the death penalty is still used in 29 states in America, including the state I live in-Ohio.

In 2007 the American Bar Association released the results of a three-year study of the death penalty.[1] Although the American Bar Association takes no position for or against the death penalty, they issued a moratorium on the death penalty because "the process is deeply flawed." As a researcher of aggression and violence for over 25 years, I also believe the death penalty is "deeply flawed." There are at least eight serious problems with the death penalty.

1. The Death Penalty Models the Behavior it Seeks to Prevent

The death penalty is used to deter killers, but it models the very behavior it seeks to prevent. It teaches the lesson that it is acceptable to kill, as long as the state is the one doing the killing. This is somewhat paradoxical. As my friend Jed said, "We don't like people who kill other people, so to show everyone how much we don't like people who kill people, we are going to kill people who kill other people. It seems like capital punishment pretty much goes against everything it claims to be for." The death penalty answers violence with violence. As American novelist Wendell Berry said, "Violence breeds violence. Acts of violence committed in 'justice' or in affirmation of 'rights' or in defense of 'peace' do not end violence. They prepare and justify its continuation."

2. You Might Kill the Wrong Person!

William Blackstone, the English jurist, judge, and Tory politician of the 18th century, said, "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." The death penalty is irreversible, so it is critical that it be used on the actual killer. Over 165 people have been exonerated and freed from death row, such as on the basis of DNA evidence.[2] It is estimated that 4.1% of death row inmates are innocent.[3] As of 2018, there are about 3,000 people on death row in America today.[4] Thus, about 120 of them, we could estimate, are innocent. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976,[5] 1,470 individuals have been executed in the U.S. (as of 2019).[6] It is difficult to know for sure how many innocent people have been executed, but it appears at least 15 have.[6]
3. The Death Penalty Does Not Reduce Murder Rates
The available evidence indicates that the death penalty does not reduce murder rates. FBI Unified Crime reports show that states with the death penalty have homicide rates 48-101% higher than states without the death penalty.[7] Similarly, an international study of criminal violence analyzed data from 110 nations over a period of 74 years and found that the death penalty does not deter criminals.[8] One reason why the death penalty might not deter criminals is that most murders are committed in a fit of rage, after an intense argument, when people rarely consider the consequences of their actions.[9] Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said: "I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point."[10] As one scholar notes, "No one who kills, by permanent or temporary insanity, through jealousy, drug addiction, robbery, alcoholism, retardation, brain damage, chemical imbalance, rape, revenge, a feeling of no way out or rage, thinks of the death penalty at the time of the murder."[11]
4. The Death Penalty Targets The Poor
Of the 22,000 murders that occur each year in the U.S., about 1% result in death sentences.[12] Which 1% depends largely on the effectiveness of the attorney, which often depends on how much money the accused has. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty."[13] Ginsburg also criticized the "meager" amount of money spent to defend poor people. OJ Simpson's lawyer-who received $5 million for defending him-said, "In the U.S., you're better off, if you're in the system, being guilty and rich than being innocent and poor."[14] There are no billionaires or millionaires on death row.
5. The Death Penalty Targets People of Color
The American Bar Association three-year study concluded: "Every state studied appears to have significant racial disparities in imposing the death penalty, particularly associated with the race of the victim, but little has been done to rectify the problem." Other statistical evidence is consistent with this conclusion.[15] Blacks make up 12% of the U.S. population, but they make up 48% of those on death row (55% of those on death row are people of color). The odds of receiving death penalty increase by 38% when the accused is Black. Although 50% murders involve white victims, 80% of death penalty cases involve white victims. In addition, black people are sometimes excluded from juries [16]. About 95% of elected prosecutors are white.[17]
6. The Death Penalty May Constitute "Cruel and Unusual Punishment."
The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: " Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." According to the U.S. Supreme Court[18], punishment is cruel and unusual if it is too severe for the crime, arbitrary, is rejected throughout society, and is not more effective than a less severe penalty. The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world that has executed minors under 18-years-old. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for minors offended "evolving standards of decency" and therefore constituted "cruel and unusual punishment."[19]

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "The capital punishment system is discriminatory and arbitrary and inherently violates the Constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment. The ACLU opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, and looks forward to the day when the United States joins the majority of nations in abolishing it."[20] There are five methods currently used to execute people-lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad, and hanging. The firing squad is only used in Utah.[21] The ACLU argues that there are significant problems with each method. Consider just a few examples of several botched cases.

A prisoner generally dies within seven minutes of receiving a lethal injection. Drugs for lethal injections in the United States were obtained from Europe, where the death penalty is illegal. However legal pressures and concerns from manufacturers in Europe have made traditional execution drugs unavailable. Thus, states have been trying experimental drug cocktails for lethal injections. There have been a number of "botched executions" involving lethal injections. In an Arizona case, for example, Joseph Rudolph Wood received two new drugs (midazolam + hydromorphone), and it took him nearly two hours to die.[22] Sometimes the victim being electrocuted bursts into flames. In 1983, for example, the electrocution of John Evans in Alabama was described in a sworn testimony by his attorney: "At 8:30 p.m. the first jolt of 1900 volts of electricity passed through Mr. Evans' body. It lasted thirty seconds. Sparks and flames erupted...from the electrode tied to Mr. Evans' left leg. His body slammed against the straps holding him in the electric chair and his fist clenched permanently. The electrode apparently burst from the strap holding it in place. A large puff of grayish smoke and sparks poured out from under the hood that covered Mr. Evans' face. An overpowering stench of burnt flesh and clothing began pervading the witness room. Two doctors examined Mr. Evans and declared that he was not dead." "The electrode on the left leg was re-fastened...Mr. Evans was administered a second...jolt of electricity. The stench of burning flesh was nauseating. More smoke emanated from his leg and head. Again, the doctors examined Mr. Evans. [They] reported that his heart was still beating, and that he was still alive. At that time, I asked the prison commissioner, who was communicating on an open telephone line to Governor George Wallace, to grant clemency on the grounds that Mr. Evans was being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. The request...was denied." "At 8:40 p.m., a third charge of electricity...was passed through Mr. Evans' body. At 8:44, the doctors pronounced him dead. The execution of John Evans took fourteen minutes." Afterwards, officials were embarrassed by what one observer called the "Barbaric ritual." The prison spokesman remarked, "This was supposed to be a very clean manner of administering death."[23]
7. The Death Penalty Costs More Than Life in Prison
Some people may be surprised to learn that the death penalty is far more expensive to implement than life in prison without the possibility of parole. As a conservative estimate, it costs $137 million per year for death penalty vs. - about 12 times more.[24] And the gap is increasing over time as the amount of time between sentencing and execution increases. Many death penalty cases involve a long, drawn out, complex, and expensive judicial process. A sentence of life in prison without parole is in actually a sentence of death in prison.[25] Nobody sentenced to life in prison without parole in the US has ever been released on parole.[25] There are only two ways that someone convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole can be released from prison (or a death sentence): (1) a pardon or commutation from the governor, or (2) by having a court overturn their conviction.
8. The Death Penalty Negatively Impacts Jurors, Justices, Governors, Executioners, and the Families of Victims
Any discussion of the death penalty should also consider the potential psychological impact of executing another human being on the jurors, justices, governors, executioners, and families involved. One writer concluded, "Jurors are unrecognized victims of the death penalty."[26] The Capital Jury Project interviewed 1,198 jurors from 353 capital trials in 14 states and found that 81% of female jurors and 18% of male jurors regretted their decisions, and 63% of female jurors and 38% of male jurors sought counseling after the trial.[27] As the former superintendent of the Oregon State Penitentiary said, "After each execution, I had staff members who decided they did not want to be asked to serve in that capacity again. Others quietly sought employment elsewhere. A few told me they were having trouble sleeping, and I worried they would develop post-traumatic stress disorder if they had to go through it another time."[28]

Often a death row inmate requests a last-minute stay of execution, which is either granted or denied by the nine U.S. Justices of the Supreme Court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that making such decisions was the "hardest part of the job I do."[29] Justice Lewis F. Powell said he had "come to think that capital punishment should be abolished, because it serves no useful purpose."[29] Justice Paul Stevens concluded, "Arbitrariness in the imposition of the death penalty is exactly the type of thing the Constitution prohibits."[29] Justice Sandra Day O'Connor also added her voice to the "growing chorus of skepticism about the administration of capital punishment in the United States."[29]

The last hope a death row inmate has for a stay of execution is a grant of clemency (for life in prison) by the state's Governor. California Governor Edmund "Pat" Brown had to make this decision about 59 inmates, and granted clemency to 23 of them. He said, "the longer I live, the larger loom those fifty-nine decisions about justice and mercy that I had to make as governor. They didn't make me feel godlike then: far from it; I felt just the opposite. It was an awesome, ultimate power over the lives of others that no person or government should have, or crave. And looking back over their names and files now, despite the horrible crimes and the catalog of human weaknesses they comprise, I realize that each decision took something out of me that nothing-not family or work or hope for the future-has ever been able to replace."[29] Illinois Governor George Ryan granted clemency to all 167 inmates he decided on because he regarded the criminal justice system as "fraught with error and [which] has innumerable opportunities for innocent people to be executed."[29] Governor Pat Quinn, also from Illinois, said: "As a state, we cannot tolerate the executions of innocent people because such actions strike at the very legitimacy of a government. Since 1977, Illinois has seen 20 people exonerated from death row. ... To say that this is unacceptable does not even begin to express the profound regret and shame we, as a society, must bear for these failures of justice."

Corrections officers actually carry out the executions, and 31% of them suffer Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder ( PTSD). In comparison, 20% of Iraq War veterans suffer PTSD. Lewis E. Lawes, who supervised 303 executions in New York, wrote, "I shall ask for the abolition of the Penalty of Death, until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me."[29]

Donald Cabana, who served as a corrections officer in Missouri, Florida, and Mississippi, said you "do not have the right to ask me, or any prison official, to bloody my hands with an innocent person's blood. Not in the name of justice, not in the name of fairness."[28] Ron McAndrews, a corrections officer from Florida and Texas, said: "[T]hose of us who have lived through an execution know just what the death penalty does to those who must perform it. In my tenure as warden, I helped perform three electrocutions in Florida and oversaw five lethal injections in Texas. In both places, I saw staff traumatized by the duties they were asked to perform. Officers who had never even met the condemned fought tears, cowering in corners so as not to be seen. Some of my colleagues turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of knowing that a man had died by their hands. I myself was haunted by the men I was asked to execute in the name of the State of Florida. I would wake up in the middle of the night to find them lurking at the foot of my bed. One of them had been cooked to death in a botched electrocution. I stood just four feet away watching flames rise out of his head, hearing the electrician ask me, 'Is that enough? Should I continue?' It wasn't until I left my post as warden that I finally sought counseling for the trauma I had been through."[29]

Some family members of murder victims feel that a death sentence will provide closure. But death penalty court proceedings can drag out for years, which prolongs their pain. By contrast, a life sentence is swift and certain, allowing families to move on.[25] One study found higher levels of physical and psychological health, and more satisfaction with the criminal justice system, for families when the sentence was life not death.[30]
Summary
In summary, there are many good reasons to abolish the death penalty, in the remaining 29 states in the U.S. and around the world. Murder is a terrible crime that is never justified and should always be punished. However, I believe that the punishment should be life in prison without the possibility of parole, rather than the death penalty. Life in prison without the possibility of parole keeps the public safe from killers while eliminating the risk of an irreversible mistake.

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In Old Testament times, the death penalty was used as the punishment for murder (Genesis 9:6).

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The Horrible History of The Death Penalty