Capital Punishment

Argumentative Essay # 99775

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Capital Punishment

An argument against the practice of capital punishment in the United States.

2,539 words () | 7 sources | APA | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper explores the matter of capital punishment and argues that state-sponsored and administered execution is not something that should be a part of the American political-legal process. In particular, the paper looks at the unenviable reputation America has gained around the world because of its practice of capital punishment and it questions the efficacy of the measure. The paper then discusses the chronic mistreatment of foreign nationals and the glaring subjectivity inherent in the sentencing process.

Table of Contents:
Abstract
Capital Punishment: A Matter of Life or Death

From the Paper:

"One of the first things that strikes anyone concerned about the wide-spread usage of capital punishment in American society is the fact that the practice has cast America in a negative light around the world. For example, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights - an organization admittedly hostile to America for a variety of reasons - accuses the United States of using the death penalty in a manner that is racist and arbitrary. Proceeding further, the Commission asserts that certain American states - Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Texas and Louisiana - have proved to be conspicuously selective in determining which demographic groups within state penitentiaries are to be subjected to the death penalty; in other words, African-Americans have been executed far more so than have whites("Capital Punishment around the World," 2004). A little later in this paper, time will be set aside for discussing the plight of foreign nationals who find themselves confronting the death penalty, but for now it is sufficient to know that America's record with regards to the death penalty is checkered by the curious over-representation of African-Americans among those being sent to their deaths by the American state."

Sample of Sources Used:

Capital punishment around the world. (2004). In M. L. Rein (ed), Capital punishment: Cruel and unusual? Detroit: Gale Group. Retrieved August 20, 2006, from Thompson Gale databases.
Dezhbakhsh, Hashem, & Shepherd, Joanna M. (July 2006). The deterrent effect of capital punishment: evidence from a "judicial experiment". Economic Inquiry, 44, 512-535. Retrieved September 12, 2006, from InfoTrac OneFile via Thomson Gale.
Donohue, John J., & Wolfers, Justin. (2006). The uses and abuses of empirical evidence in the death penalty debate. Stanford Law Review, 58(3): 791-845. Retrieved September 12, 2006, from InfoTrac OneFile via Thompson Gale.
Jacoby, Joseph E. and Pasternoster, Raymond. (1982). Sentencing disparity and jury packing: further challenges to the death penalty. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 73(1): 379-87.
Johnson, Jeffery L. Poverty and the death penalty. (2001). Journal of Economic Issues, 35(2): 517-523.