quiz 38 Qs
Jude55
DeathPenaltylecture.pptxDeath Penalty: Background
In the US, the death penalty is applied almost exclusively for murder
Though, in some states there are laws on the book for lesser crimes, mostly related to rape of a minor
34 states have the death penalty, plus the US government and the military
All the Council of Europe's 47 member states have either abolished capital punishment or instituted a moratorium on executions
Three quarters of executions worldwide occur in Asia
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Early PRACTICES
The death penalty has appeared from the beginning of recorded history
Ancient societies (Babylon, Hittite empire, Egypt, Athens, Rome)
Use as a general form of punishment
Medieval and early modern Europe, before modern prison systems were developed
Mass execution in wars and oppression
By opposite sides in the World Wars
By states - Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Communist China
Executions have a really long history. The death penalty appears from the beginning of recorded history. The first death penalty laws recorded were in the Code of Hammurabi in 18th century BC Babylon. Death penalty laws also showed up in 16th century BC Egypt, in the Hittite Code of the 14th century BC, in the Draconian Code in 7th century BC Athens, and in Roman Law in the 5th century BC.
Before modern prison systems were developed, executions were used in medieval and early modern Europe as a general form of punishment. During Henry VIII’s reign, an estimated 72,000 people were executed.
Mass executions also occurred in the World Wars, and in oppressive states like Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Communist China.
World wars in the 20th century resulted in mass executions.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/execution/readings/history.html
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i-history-death-penalty
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Capital_punishment#cite_note-0
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Past Methods of Execution
“Barbaric” by today’s standards?
Some especially torturous or weird ones
Drawing and quartering
Slow slicing
Roman punishment for parricide (murder of a parent) – submersion under water in a sack, with a dog, a rooster, a viper, and an ape
| Crucifixion Drowning Beating Burning alive Burying alive Impalement | Crushing by elephant Boiling Hanging Decapitation Drawing and quartering Slow slicing |
Early methods of execution might very well be considered barbaric by today’s standards. If you look at Britain, for example, in the middle ages, you would be tortured before you were put to death. In 1531, Britain approved boiling to death – and records show that some people boiled for up to two hours before succumbing to death.
Drawing and quartering (an English method) and slow slicing (a Chinese method) stand out as being especially torturous.
If you were drawn and quartered (as a man), you’d be hanged almost to the point of death, emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and chopped into four pieces, then displayed in prominent places. This was abolished in 1870.
If you were slow sliced, that was also called “death by a thousand cuts.” You would be tied down in a public place, then have bits of you slowly cut off over an extended period of time. This was abolished in 1905.
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Movement towards humane execution
Movement towards “humane” execution
Guillotine (France)
Banning drawing and quartering (Britain)
Improving hanging (Britain)
Dropping a farther distance to make it faster
Moving away from hanging altogether (the U.S.)
Electric chair, gas chamber
Lethal injection
CURRENT methods of execution
| Methods Permitted in 2010 | Where |
| Beheading Electric chair Gas chamber Hanging Lethal Injection Shooting | Saudi Arabia, Qatar U.S. (AL, TN, VA, SC, KY) U.S. (CA, MO, AZ) Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Egypt, India, Burma, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, S. Korea, Malawi, Liberia, Chad, U.S. (Washington) Guatemala, Thailand, China, Vietnam, U.S. (all states that use capital punishment) China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Belarus, Lebanon, Cuba, Grenada, N. Korea, Indonesia |
Death penalty in the US
http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on-capital-punishment/
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Death penalty in the US
http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on-capital-punishment/
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Death penalty worldwide
http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on-capital-punishment/
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Death penalty worldwide
http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on-capital-punishment/
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in favor of the death penalty
Deters crime
Services justice
Avoid showing more sympathy for criminals than victims
A law enforcement tool for police and prosecutors (a bargaining chip in the plea bargain process)
A just penalty for atrocities (e.g., the most vicious murders)
Closure to the victim’s loved ones
DNA testing and other modern methods of crime scene science can eliminate uncertainty as to guilt/innocence
Solves overpopulation in the prison system
against the death penalty
Wrongful executions are a miscarriage of justice
There have been many innocent victims; DNA exoneration
Discrimination against minorities and the poor
A “culture of violence”
Appeals and additional procedures clog the system
We must move away from the “eye for an eye” mentality
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/campaigns/abolish-the-death-penalty?id=1011005
http://www.balancedpolitics.org/death_penalty.htm
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Life in prison is a worse, more effective deterrent
The prisoner’s family suffers
Creates sympathy for the criminals
Doesn’t bring the victim(s) back to life
Sends the wrong message (murder as an answer to murder)
A violation of the “cruel and unusual” clause in the Bill of Rights
A violation of human rights
Amnesty International describes it as “an ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights” perpetuating a “cycle of violence created by a system riddled with economic and racial bias and tainted by human error.”
Special Issues of controversy: Death penalty and innocence
“Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent.” -Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., 1994
As of October 27, 2010 there have been 138 exonerations in 26 different States due to evidence of innocence
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-innocence
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty
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Special Issues of controversy: Death penalty and innocence
Factors leading to wrongful convictions include:
Inadequate legal representation
Police and prosecutorial misconduct
Perjured testimony and mistaken eyewitness testimony
Racial prejudice
Jailhouse "snitch" testimony
Suppression and/or misinterpretation of mitigating evidence
Community/political pressure to solve a case
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Special issues of controversy: death penalty and race
In a 1990 report, the non-partisan U.S. General Accounting Office found "a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty.”
Holding all other factors constant, the single most reliable predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death is the race of the victim
More than 20% of black defendants who have been executed were convicted by all-white juries.
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Special issues of controversy: death penalty and race
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Special issues of controversy: death penalty and race
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-race
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Special Issues of controversy: Mental Illness
The execution of those with mental illness or "the insane" is clearly prohibited by international law
Virtually every country in the world prohibits the execution of people with mental illness.
The execution of the insane – someone who does not understand the reason for, or the reality of, his or her punishment - violates the U.S. Constitution (Ford v. Wainwright, 1986)
The Ford decision left the determination of sanity up to each state
The National Association of Mental Health has estimated that five to ten percent of those on death row have serious mental illness.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-mental-illness
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Special Issues of controversy: Mental Illness
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-mental-illness
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Special Issues of controversy: Method of execution
Currently, lethal injection is thought to be the most humane form of execution
Since the first lethal injection on December 7, 1982, over 1,000 prisoners in the USA have been executed by this method
Lethal injection increases the risk that medical personnel will be involved in killing for the state
Some executions have lasted between 20 minutes to over an hour and prisoners have been seen gasping for air, grimacing and convulsing during executions.
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Notable cases: Bin Laden
European Commission: The death of bin Laden was not an "execution" and does not call into question Europe's opposition to the death penalty
Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso welcomed his death as a "major achievement" which ensured his crimes did not go unpunished and insisted the EU's underlying values of justice were not called into question
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/bin-laden-death-not-an-execution-2277943.html
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Notable cases: Bin Laden
If Bin Laden had been tried in the United States, he could have faced the death penalty upon conviction
By contrast, all the major U.S. allies in Europe have abolished the death penalty, and the international tribunals adjudicating war crimes in the Balkans and Rwanda cannot impose capital punishment.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/565
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Wrongful Convictions on Death Row
New research finds that almost four percent of U.S. capital punishment sentences are wrongful convictions, almost double the number of people set free, meaning around 120 of the roughly 3,000 inmates on death row in America are not guilty.
