The Eighth Amendment requires the sentencing judge or jury to consider.
the individual character of the offender and the circumstances of the .
particular crime before deciding whether to impose a death sentence. A .
two-part proceeding "one for the determination of guilt or innocence and .
a second for determining the sentence "provides an opportunity for such .
individualized consideration prior to sentencing (Quarterly 245).
With this sort of system in place, the judicial system is more likely to remain unbiased in all their decisions. The court system gives defendants the benefit of the doubt and by using a two-part proceeding process, defendants have a chance to "show their side of the story-. The only time this system may be ineffective is when a defendant has a court appointed lawyer. The chance that the lawyer has enough experience to represent a defendant facing death is not very high.
Since the 1976 decision of Gregg v. Georgia, 670 people have been executed, while another 3,700 await execution. While these numbers seem startling, what is even more interesting is the race of the inmates who are on death row. While it might be assumed that Blacks and Hispanics would make up the majority of people on death row, the numbers prove otherwise. Since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, white inmates have made up the majority of those under the sentence of death (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2-3). Not only do white people make up the majority .
3.
of death row inmates, but also the death row population has grown from 420 inmates in 1976 to 3,593 inmates in 2000. What is even more surprising is the fact that more than 70 juvenile offenders wait death row. Also, many death row inmates suffer from mental retardation or mental illness (Death Penalty in America 4). If we do not execute serious criminal offenders, then the only other option for them is life in prison.