Why does the USA continue to employ the death penalty when fifty other developed democracies have abolished it? Simple, the death penalty represents a deeply held US-American belief in violent social justice that sees the executioner as an agent of local control and safeguard of community values. I hear a story that Thomas Jefferson once shot a man on the white house territory for treason. For some reason, it didn’t surprise me at all that the chief executive would carry out an execution himself. The reason was that I understood that it was the eighteenth century and that’s how it was during those times. Some would agree that we have evolved from hanging and firing squads, unfortunately we haven’t. In Utah, the alternative method of execution is the lethal injection but the prison may choose which method he prefers. J.A. Taylor volunteered to be fired upon after he cut in peaces and burnt a woman to death after he raped her. He was the second person to be executed by shooting since 1976. B. Bailey was hung by Delaware as the third man in three years in 1996. Some traditions never die.
Capital punishment also shows a philosophical partition in American values. While it is not as exposed at abortion or cloning, it still divides the nation. Politicians have to choose what side they are on in terms of the death penalty. Depending upon who they are trying to impress, it could be a substantial amount of votes. When a political leader takes his side on the death penalty, it is one of the main aspects that person is looked upon by the voter. This is a major concern if you are a gubernatorial candidate, especially in one of the Southern states.
The fundamental reason that capital punishment should be abolished is the fact that we have put innocent people to death. Capital punishment is our greatest punishment, it is irrevocable and if we as society consider it necessary, it must be perfect. Unfortunately for J. Tafero, it is not. Tafero was executed in 1990 for the murder of two police officers on a Florida highway rest stop. S. Jacobs was also sentenced to death with Tafero on the same charge based on a statement of a third co-defendant. In 1992, the Jacobs's conviction was inverted on a federal order of “habeas corpus” in 1992. Following the discovery that the chief prosecution witness (the third co-defendant) had given clashing statements, the prosecutor accepted a plea in which Jacobs did not admit guilt, and she was immediately released. Unfortunately for Tafero, he was executed before this evidence was heard.
Also, there is the point of racism in death penalty judgments. A proved statistic says that, for a crime, it is five times more likely to execute a black person rather than a white. As seen in the film “40 days in May”, E. Johnson has been executed for a crime he didn’t commit. White policemen forced him to sign a confession for the murder of a police officer. Short time after his execution, a witness for his innocence was found.
After all, prisons were not only made as punishment, but to rehabilitate criminals to be regretful and understand what they took from the society and what they owe to it in due to compensate the losses. To take away any chance of the accused to understand what they did or even ignore the fact that they might be innocent is not what a country is supposed to do. The justice system must be perfect if it is to do something that is irreversible.
Since 1976, each state has several different methods they may choose to execute a prisoner. The five authorized methods of execution are: firing squad (which was last used 1996 in Utah), electrocution, gas chamber (last used 1999 in Arizona), hanging (last used 1996 in Delaware), and the lethal injection. All those methods exist in the USA, the “strongest country” of the world, a country which is considered to be “civilized”. It should be mentioned though that in some Arabic countries stoning still exists. A prisoner is dug into the earth to his neck, and passing citizens are throwing stones at the head of the guilty (?) person. Throwers are not allowed to use to big stones, they could kill the person to fast, and to small stones, they could do to little pain and damage.
The most common method of execution in America is the lethal injection. Well over ninety-five percent of the criminals in the USA are being executed by lethal injections in the last five years. The lethal injection has also been the most common “botched” execution. A “botched” execution is described by the Death Penalty Information Center as “Incidences of serious problems in the actual execution of inmates.” Out of the 852 persons that have been executed since the death penalty was re-established in 1976, 36 of them experienced brutal problems during the execution, or “botched” executions. 20 of the 36 “botched” executions were because the execution team was unable to find a suitable vein on the inmate while trying to execute the inmate by lethal injection.
D. Harding was executed by lethal gas in 1992 for the shooting deaths of two businessmen in a hotel room after torturing them. His execution went according to plan, until Harding refused to breathe deeply as is required for the gas to penetrate the blood vessels in the brain. His body resisted and he screamed for over six minutes. Death was not pronounced until ten minutes after the gas was released. Usually it takes a matter of minutes for a patient to give way to asphyxiation (lack of blood supply to the brain). A television news reporter that witnessed the execution claimed that, “We put animals to death more humanely than this.” Other people who witnessed the execution were “walking vegetables” during the following days while another journalist suffered from insomnia. This might be savage justice, but not true justice.
The death penalty is a practice that must be eliminated from today’s society. With the many advances that society has made, executing people for crimes the person may have or may not have committed is still practiced. This is one of those issues in which our society should move forward from inhuman punishment and treatment. Not only is there a risk of executing the wrong person, but the way in which people are executed isn’t humane. In order for society to be allowed to kill criminals, everything involved must be accurate and effective. The capital punishment system is not effective, and not completely justified. No proper civilized society can establish death penalty as it’s a sign of inhumanity and disrespect to the planet earth.