Death penalty8

The death penalty gives society the unmistakable message that human life no longer deserves respect when it is useful to take it and that homicide is legitimate when deemed justified by the concerns of society. Reliance on the death penalty obscures the true causes of crime and distracts attention from the social measures that effectively contribute to its control. Politicians who preach the desirability of executions as a weapon of crime control deceive the public and mask their own failure to support anti-crime measures that will really work because over 94% of criminal justice dollars are spent after the crime has already been committed. Capital punishment wastes resources. It squanders the time and energy of courts, prosecuting attorneys, defense counsel, juries, and courtroom and correctional personnel. It unduly burdens

the system of criminal justice, and it is therefore counterproductive as an instrument for society's control of violent crime. It epitomizes the tragic inefficacy and brutality of the resort to violence rather than reason for the solution of difficult social problems. A decent and humane society does not deliberately kill human beings. An execution is a dramatic, public

spectacle of official, violent homicide that teaches the permissibility of killing people to solve social problems. In this century, governments have too often attempted to justify their lethal fury by the benefits such killing would bring to the rest of society. The bloodshed is real and deeply destructive of the common decency of the community; the benefits are illusory. In order for one to fully understand the problems with the death penalty they must take a brief look at its history.

The first established death penalty laws date back to the eighteenth century B.C in the code of King Hammaurabi. It warranted the death penalty for twenty five different crimes. The death penalty was also part of the seventh century’s Draconian code of Athens which made death the only punishment for all crimes and in the fifth century B.C’s Roman Law of Twelve Tablets. Death sentences were carried out by such means as crucifying a person, drowning, beating to death, or burning the person alive. In the tenth century A.D hanging became the usual method of execution in Britain. In the following century William the Conqueror would not allow any person to be executed for any crime except for in times of war. Though, this did not last in the sixteenth century under the reign of Henry VIII. As many as 72,000 people were executed. The number of capital crimes continued to rise through the next two centuries and by the 1700’s there were 222

crimes punishable by death including stealing, cutting down a tree, and robbing a rabbit warren. Britain had the largest influence on America’s use of the death penalty. The first recorded execution in the colonies was of Captain George Kendall in 1608 who was executed for espionage. In 1632 Jane champion became the first woman to be executed in the new colonies.

But at several times in history the United States has saw the death penalty as an unfit manner of going about justice but yet always seem to revert

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