capital punishment essay

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Capital Punishment Isn’t the Answer
The use of capital punishment goes as far back as the early 1800’s. Although the death penalty is now called capital punishment, its ways of going through out its punishments have evolved into the new modern world. Back in the 1600s and it seemed to be used a lot more loosely than it is used now in our time. As a citizen of the 20th century I find that the death penalty is wrong in most cases. Innocent men in the past have been killed and once someone is dead there is no bringing them back. Also the ways that people die are definitely inhumane, even though most will argue that it isn’t. If you look at the past how it was used shows how evil people that run the nation can even act. Just because a murder murders someone doesn’t mean that the lesson to show others is used by murdering them.
The death penalty, or as it’s now called; capital punishment traces back to before America was even established as a country. The first legally executed death of a criminal was supposedly in 1622 of a man named Daniel Frank, which occurred in Virginia. Virginia had very loose laws on executing their people while other colonies had very strict laws and didn’t feel it had to be used every single day. Under the Capital Laws of New-England that went into effect between 1636-1647 the death penalty was inflicted on pre-meditated murder, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, assault in anger, rape, statutory rape, man stealing, perjury in a capital trial, rebellion, manslaughter, poisoning and bestiality. Some of those reasons for the death penalty seem reasonable, but executing a man for committing blasphemy and rebellion seem a little extreme. These executions of murder are not humane and the answer for anything.
In the tenth century A.D in Britain, the death penalty was very heavily used. Hanging was the method that they mostly resorted to. Following the 10th century, William the conqueror didn’t want any person to be hanged. He also didn’t want anyone to be killed in any circumstances except in the times of war, which he could not necessarily stop that. Although it wasn’t until the 16th century that henry VII took the power and executed an estimated amount of 72,000 people. There were executions being carried out for reasons such as capital offenses, be married to a Jewish person, treason, and not confessing to committing a crime. Some of his most commonly used methods of execution were boiling, burning at stake, hanging, beheading, and drawing and quartering. Even though all of these events happened way in the past and their laws weren’t like they are today they seem unlawful to do to any human being no matter what the crime was. In the twentieth century there are still many ways to legally execute a person. In America there are only five ways that the government can legally execute a man. The five ways are lethal injection, electrocution, the gas chamber, hanging, and a firing squad. The most common method used of all four of those is the lethal injection. Lethal injection is a fast and painful death, why give a man that caused so much pain a quick painless death.
Studies show that the most common race to be legally executed are the Caucasians and then following the Caucasians are the African Americans. Even though there is a higher percentage rate of the white Americans being executed doesn’t mean that the entire process is racist. There are many racial discrepancies that follow with capital punishment. The white ratio in America to black is a big difference. There are a lot more white people in American than there are black people, so statistically there should be more white males or females’ receiving the death penalty since there is a bigger amount of them. Even though there are a little bit less of black people receiving the death penalty, there is a higher ratio. Since there are less black Americans in our country, the amount that is actually receiving these penalties is a lot
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