Lethal injection is by no means cruel. The recipient receives an injection, goes to sleep, and never wakes up.
The Fifth Amendment states that no person shall be deprived of life "without the due process of law" (Law, 2002). This tells us that the death penalty is an option as long as it is gone about in the correct manner by law. It is clear to see that the death penalty is reinforced by the Constitution (acknowledged as an option for punishment in the Fifth Amendment and defined in its parameters in the Eighth Amendment) as long as it (lethal injection) is implemented in a consistent manner, and throughout all the United States as the form of punishment for all capital offenders. Thus, since the Constitution permits the death penalty it should be made legal everywhere.
In the event that the death penalty is implemented in all the states and is carried through in a fast and consistent manner, then the death penalty would also serve as a deterrent. Thus, it would decrease the number of first-time capital offenders, decrease the number of repeat capital crime offenders, and increase the number of lives that are saved due to the major threats of our society being removed and used as an example to illustrate no tolerance to murderers. In January of 1976 there were 55 murders committed in Utah. In the preceding year after a murderer had been executed that number dropped to 44 murders the following year, a 20 percent decrease. A decade later we see that the count from January through August was 38 murders, a monthly average of 4.75 (Sharp, 1997). After a convicted murderer had been executed in August, there were only 16 murders committed in the months of September to December, a monthly average of 4. Also in 1988 the total of murders committed was 47, where the following year, January to July there was 26 murders committed, and in July after a murderer's execution, the number of committed murders from July to December was 21, a 19 percent decrease (Sharp, 1997).
Rummel at September 28, 2003 09:34 PM Comments If you asked me to identify the biggest single problem we had with our justice system, I'd probably surprise the heck out of you by saying that it's that our prison conditions are inhumane. ... Passing a law requiring this-or-that in the criminal justice system won't make the money magically appear. ...
