Death Penalty Case Study: The Code Of Hammurabi

My proposal and personal recommendation is to abolish the death penalty on a national level. I do not think that it benefits society as much as it harms individuals and causes unnecessarily excessive judicial costs. However, I still believe that the death penalty should remain in effect for some extraneous situations. The federal government should still be able to preform executions when it deems them necessary. Yet I believe that traditional murder sentencing’s should be free of

Capital Punishment, or the death penalty, has gone back and forth between Supreme Court cases for years (Death Penalty). Since 1972, with the case Furman v. Georgia, the legality of the death penalty has been challenged, along with it’s principality and methods. The first recorded use of death as a punishment in America was in 1608 (Reggio), George Kendall of Virginia was executed under the belief that he would betray the British Empire to the Spanish, and the first legal execution occurred in 1622, when Daniel Frank of Virginia was put to death for thievery. Historically, the death penalty was inflicted under crimes like theft, murder, perjury, adultery, rape and statutory rape, buggery and beastiality, arson, blasphemy, and the Duke’s

Radeler and Traci L. Locock conducted their own research. They titled it “Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates?” In 2008 they sent questions to some of the top criminologist and one of the questions found that “eighty-nine percent of the criminologist don’t think that the death penalty is effective.” (Radeler , Locock 2009 pg. 501). The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is one of the key fighters trying to get rid of the death penalty.

In “Deterrence and the Death Penalty: Why the Statistics Should Be Ignored,” Daniel Nagin explains why the statistics are not reliable. According to researchers, studies have reached different and contradictory outcomes. Some studies say that executions save numerous lives and other studies say that executions increase homicides while others say that executions have no effect on homicide. The National Research Council recommends that studies on the effect of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates. Thus, the committee suggests that these studies should not be used as reliable information on how death penalty affects homicide.

Have you ever broke some rules in a game, cheated or broke the law? If you got a punishment did you think it was too harsh? Personally, I think the punishment in Hammurabi’s code is unfair and too harsh. Hammurabi’s code includes unfairness to women and different social classes. The punishments were also too harsh and cruel.

Madison Bushloper Ms. Thomas AP Seminar 10/29/2015 High Cost of the Death Penalty Many issues present themselves dealing with the economic impact of the death penalty, as its more popular execution methods can be pricey, the trials held involving sentencing a felon to death row can be expensive, and the fact that when trying to sentence a supposed criminal to death, the costs of investigating the matter can be quite high. The death penalty has been widely used in the United States by 34 states since its reinstatement in the year 1976. However, one must call into question its costly effects on the nation as a whole, with the negatives outweighing the positives in the administration of the death penalty.

(Kendall, 2015) There are clearly some costs to using the death penalty as an option today. It is costly to a system that is not as funded in jail/prison space. The money that is allocated to the drugs could easily be allocated to prison reform, new prisons, and keeping life-sentenced

The major reason why the death penalty should be abolished is that the cost of the death penalty is too much and the USA is in debt to many other countries. What this means is that the death penalty should be abolished and also the cost death penalty is more than the cost of maximum sentence life in prison. According to J. Marceau and H. Whitson, “The Cost of Colorado’s Death penalty,” 3 Univ. of Denver Criminal Law Review “A new study of the cost of the death penalty in Colorado revealed that capital proceedings require six times more days in court and

"My family and I believed the death penalty would serve as the ultimate warning to criminals but nearly 40 years of evidence proves it does not work", Ron Briggs. According to deathpenaltyinfo.org the highest murder rates are in the south, where the highest Capital Punishment count is. A poll in 2009 carried out by the DPIC found that police chiefs rank the death penalty last in ways to reduce crime. Think about it, I life in prison is just as bad as capital punishment. It would make sense that Capital Punishment is not working, if someone is crazy enough to commit a crime that would get them a lifetime in prison, then they are still going to do it even if their life is on the line.

Deanna Young Informer: Death Penalty December 4, 2017 History of Crimes Punishable and the Sentences The death penalty dates back to the 18th Century BC when the Code of Hammurabi was written, which contained the first known death penalty laws. (Historical Timeline, 2013). Under these laws, there were 25 crimes punishable by law, murder was not included in this list (Reggio, 2014). The first recorded execution occurred in 16th century BC in Egypt when a man was accused of using magic and ordered to kill himself (Reggio, 2014).

Research has indicated some advantages to abolishing the death penalty. Long term imprisonment is far more expensive than the death penalty in the end. A study of the death penalty in California in 2011 showed that the cost of housing a death- row inmate is $100,000 more per year than the cost of housing someone sentenced to life without parole. The process is dragged out too long, costing way too much time and money. As Chammah stated, “The American death penalty system is so slow, inconsistent and inefficient that it costs far more than life without parole.”

The death penalty is a very controversial topic for obvious reasons, everyone has their own opinion on whether it should be used and when it shouldn’t, or possibly that it should never be allowed to be used. The problem with everyone having so many opinions is that often facts and opinions are mixed and exaggerated to get a point across. So I will be writing about how it is less efficient than many pro-death penalty activists say in terms of money, deterrence, and whether it is moral. My first point is whether the death penalty is effective in terms of money.

The death penalty cost millions and trillions of dollars per year just to put criminal to rest. Little do the people know that we pay for the death penalty with our taxes. The Death penalty also rises many questions due to the process of being sentenced to it and how it is done. The death penalty

It leads to wastage of the taxpayer’s money. Capital punishment litigations cost taxpayers much more than the ones seeking life without parole. Criminal cases for death punishment lead to excessive usage of the legal system including the very valuable days in the court. A state spends an average of $150,000 on a case for life sentence without parole while this cost could go up to almost $3.5 million for death penalty cases (Holloway, 2015). Another reason that capital punishment should be done away with as soon as possible is because death penalty is unevenly applied and race has been found to be discriminatory factor while awarding death penalty.

Recently, though the death penalty has lost support, and gaining more opposition. “According to a Gallup poll released October 25. Gallup reported that 60% of respondents said they support capital punishment—off one percentage point from last year—while opposition remained at 37%, matching its highest level since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972” (J. Jones). Due to the lack of support lately, many people are pondering whether the death penalty should be authorized. “50% of respondents believe the death penalty is applied fairly, the lowest level in the question's 17-year history, and 44% believe it is applied unfairly, the highest level in 17 years” (J. Jones).