The Death Penalty

Paper Summary:

The paper examines the history of the administration of the death penalty in the United States. The paper contends that it is fraught with racism and only in rare instances has anyone other than a poor person been executed. The paper also argues that there is no evidence that the death penalty deters crime, yet, support for the death penalty in the United States remains strong. The paper shows how, nevertheless, over the last few decades, Supreme Court rulings have consistently demonstrated a slow move toward abolition of the death penalty.

From the Paper:

"Ironically, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the new states that made up the American Republic were among the first jurisdictions in the world to limit the use of the death penalty and to substitute imprisonment for execution (Cottrol 2004). James Madison disapproved of the death penalty, and Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin favored limiting the death penalty to murder and treason, while the Quakers, who were very influential in the Middle Atlantic states, had a reticence concerning the death penalty (Cottrol 2004). In fact, after the Revolution, the Quakers were instrumental in strictly limiting the number of crimes punishable by death in Pennsylvania, thus only murder and treason survived as capital crimes (Cottrol 2004). The main exceptions were the slave states that kept a longer list of capital crimes for slaves and free Negroes, thereby demonstrating the lasting link between social inequality and the use of the death penalty (Cottrol 2004)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cottrol, Robert J. (2004 May 01). The Death Penalty: An American History. Stanford Law Review. Retrieved January 14 2007 from HighBeam Research Library.
• Geraghty, Thomas F. (2003 September 22). Trying to understand America's death penalty system and why we still have it. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Retrieved January 14 2007 from HighBeam Research Library.
• Larson, Jessie. (2003 June 22). Unequal justice: the Supreme Court's failure to curtail selective prosecution for the death penalty. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Retrieved January 14 2007 from HighBeam Research Library.
• Patterson, Krista L. (2006 April 01). Acculturation and the development of death penalty doctrine in the United States. Duke Law Journal. Retrieved January 14 2007 from HighBeam Research Library.

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