Capital Punishment: Respecting the Majority

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the United States is in the process of reversing an earlier move to eliminate capital punishment, as more and more states are resorting to capital punishment for serious offenses such as murder. The author points out that it is reasonable to assume that if a majority is in favor of capital punishment then, in a democratic society, its wish should be seriously considered with equal consideration given to the opposing minority views. The paper argues that the benefits of capital punishment are incapacitation of the criminal, cost, vengeance or retribution and deterrence.

From the Paper:

"Restructuring of the death penalty began in Europe by the 1750s, and academicians such as the Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria, the French philosopher Voltaire, and the English law reformers Jeremy Bentham and Samuel Romilly supported this. They argued that the death penalty was needlessly cruel, overrated as a deterrent, and occasionally imposed in fatal error. Along with Quaker leaders and other social reformers, they defended life imprisonment as a more rational alternative. Countries such as Venezuela and Portugal were the first nations to abolish the death penalty altogether. Today, it is virtually abolished in all of Western Europe and most of Latin America. In America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (except Israel) most countries still retain the death penalty for certain crimes and impose it with varying frequency "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Capital punishment. .2004. Duhaime.org. http://www.duhaime.org/dictionary/dict-c.htm.
• Capital Punishment: Pros. . 1998. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/legal/870.shtml..
• Thoughts on the death penalty. 2004. http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/thoughts.html.
• Oberg, Cynthia G. The Death Penalty - True Cause for Justice . May 2000. http://gecko.gc.maricopa.edu/~cgoberg/prodeath.htm..

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