The Evolution of the Death Penalty in the United States

The Evolution of the Death Penalty in the United States

Many years ago, the term ‘eye for an eye’ was coined to deem that you should take whatever consequence comes your way, and that the consequence should match the crime. This led to many deaths carried out across history, until thankfully law intervened to make more sense of such decisions. The term capital punishment refers to when somebody has been sentenced to death for punishment of their crimes. Also known as the death penalty, it has long been a controversial practice and has drawn much ire from both supporters and detractors. Even today, thirty one countries still use the death penalty, including parts of the United States. It is not just convicts who are killed using the death penalty either, between 1916 and 2012, 135 US Soldiers have been killed on death row. Currently legal in thirty two of the states, Texas currently has put through the most executions at 361, whereas Oklahoma has the highest per capita execution rate. The execution rate stands at less than 2% of inmates at present, and the most common form of capital punishment is lethal injection. The American jurisdictions which currently do not allow the death penalty are;
  • Alaska
  • Washington D.C.
  • Iowa
  • Illinois
  • Maine
  • Hawaii
  • Massachusetts
  • Nebraska
  • Michigan
  • North Dakota
  • Vermont
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin
  • Rhode Island
The Death Penalty was first introduced, and then used in Texas, in February 1924. The form of execution was electrocution, and this remained the most common way of execution for quite some time, until 1964 to be exact. However, in 1972 the death penalty was seen as “cruel and unusual” by the Supreme Court, which actually violated the Eighth Amendment. This led to changes in the Penal code in many states, although since 1972 this has been revoked and capital punishment – or the death penalty – is legal once again. The process, however, was changed drastically. With two trails for each case, first the actual conviction, and then the decision of whether the convicted deserves the death penalty. In 1982, the first convict was killed under the new rules, and since then Texas has been the most common user of the Death Penalty. However, the electric chair was less common now, and people were instead usually killed using the lethal injection. The lethal injection used serves to relax the body to a state of complete comfort, until the lungs and diaphragm collapse, leaving the convict to die peacefully. Additionally, Potassium Chloride also stops the heart, which makes sure that the death is swift. From injection to death can take around seven minutes. Originally, all convicts on Death Row were sent to the one place, but this has since changed as they are housed across each state depending on the laws of that state. Most convicts on death row are extremely dangerous and therefore are treated as such, with individual exercise time and severe confinement in any prison made to hold any prisoners on death row. Although the Death Penalty has many of its detractors, the method has been toned down extremely over the years and now provides a much more humane way of execution.

Related Articles:

Part I: History of the Death Penalty http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i-history-death-penalty Capital punishment in the United States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States History of the Death Penalty & Recent Developments http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/death/history.html