Under our current U.S. Constitution which has been around for over 200 years, prisoners of the government cannot be subjected to any kind of punishment which is deemed cruel and unusual. However all the forms of capital punishment that the government uses are questionable as to whether or not they are legal according to the Constitution. Forms of capital punishment that are still used in the United States include hanging, firing squad, electrocution, gas chamber, and lethal injection. With hangings a rope is attached to a persons neck proceeded with them being dropped from a certain height with the other end of the rope attached to something higher than them. The result is either strangulation which can take a while or complete decapitation. With the firing squad option a prisoner is tied to a chair and blinded. After this a firing squad composed most of the time of five individuals fires gun shots at a target attached to the prisoners chest (ACLU).
The most widely used form of execution has been electrocution. With this method of electrocution a prison is strapped to a chair along with electrodes attached all over his body. The electrocutioner then proceeds to "throw the switch" which results in huge amounts of voltage flowing through the prisoner. During this period of time the prisoner burns and shakes violently from this overdose of electricity; when it is over smoke is often seen coming from the prisoner's head.
Officials often defend this punishment as not being cruel and unusual, but how can they defend this opinion in the case of John Evans who was executed by electrocution in 1983? According to witnesses at the scene Mr. Evans was given three charges of electrocution over a period of fourteen minutes. After the first and second charges Mr. Evans was still conscious and smoke was coming from all over his body as a result of his flesh burning. An official there even tried to stop the execution on account of it being cruel and unusual punishment, but was unsuccessful. Witnesses later called the whole incident a "barbaric ritual."
Another method of execution is the gas chamber; with this procedure a prisoner is put in a closed chamber and forced to inhale lethal fumes from a sulfuric acid and cyanide chemical reaction. According to a dissent by U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens concerning the 1992 execution of Don Harding, there did not seem to be any civilized aspect of the gas chamber method of executing prisoners. According to the report at first Harding tried to hold his breath inside the chamber, but was unsuccessful; when he finally inhaled some of the fumes his body started convulsing and the muscles and veins under his skin were twitching in a "wavelike motion." This execution took over eight minutes to complete and Mr. Harding was writhing in pain for most of that time. According to officials at the scene Harding did not fall unconscious until right before his death (Bedau).
The latest method of executing prisoners on death roll has been lethal injection. It is deemed not barbaric by many people because of the fact that it does not cause struggles or maim the body like hangings, firing squads, electrocutions, or the gas chambers. Nonetheless, this method of executing is still barbaric. At the 1988 execution of Raymond Landry officials there had to repeatedly puncture him because he had very small veins. In addition to this cruel treatment, during the procedure a tube attached to the needle leaked and the harsh chemicals used to kill Landry were sprayed in the direction of witnesses. Beside this case there have been cases where the victims was not given a strong enough dosage and writhed in pain for a long period of time while conscious. According to the many police officers or chiefs who have to witness the death penalty they say is should be abolished because they are sick of having to watch it and because they feel that it does not deter crime(Associated Press).
According to advocates of the death penalty the main reason some of them take their position is because they feel that capital punishment deters crime. They feel that the murderers in this world will not kill if they know this. My answer to this is that the death penalty does not deter. People who are in the "business" of killing take measures to make sure they do not get caught; they skillfully concoct plans to make sure they are not suspected of criminal activity. A person who gets caught for killing another individual is usually someone who did not plan to murder in the first place. These individuals fall into the "crimes of passion" category. Crimes of passion are defined as unlawful acts of an individual which are unplanned and erupt as a result of a fit or rage or anger. These illegal actions usually stem from drunkenness or a short term loss of logic thinking which can be attributed to anger. The death penalty it would seem would logically deter crime, but the problem is that most murderers are unplanned and are not a result of logic.
There is other evidence which refutes the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent. During the 1930's the federal government, under the direction of Jack Gibbs, investigated the effectiveness of the death penalty in deterring serious crime. The results of Gibbs investigation is that capital punishment did not deter. However, during the 1970's Prof. Isaac Ehrlich found out through his research that capital punishment did deter (Van den Haag, 210). Many advocates of capital punishment base their opinions on his results, but what many of them do not know is that no one else besides Ehrlich has come up with the same results (Blumstein, 358). The conclusion that researches have drawn up during the past decade is that the death penalty does not significantly have an effect on serious crime one way or the other.
According to Bedau, the media in some sense makes it seem like Americans overwhelmingly support the death penalty. However, if Americans had to choose between the death penalty and a life sentence without parole and the convicted had to work and not just sit inside a prison cell, then they would not support the death penalty. According to a Field Institute survey, only 26 percent of the American population would support the death penalty if convicted murderers were forced into life imprisonment with restitution.
The death penalty should be abolished because it is a barbaric form of punishment which should not be allowed in the United States which is supposedly one of the most civilized nations in the world. It should also be abolished not only because it is barbaric, but also because it defies the U.S. Constitution which most American hold sacred. In addition to this, the death penalty even if it remains legal in the U.S. would not obtain its goal. Because the death penalty fails its main objective and because of the reason stated above it should be abolished.
Associated Press. "PD Chiefs: Death Penalty Fails". news:death-penaltyURcb0_5FN@clarinet.com:Thu, 23 Feb 95 4:40:09 PST.
Bedau, Hugo Adam. "The Case Against The Death Penalty".
gopher://gopher.pipeline.com:70/00/society/aclu/issues/death/case_against.
Blumstein, Alfred and Jacqueline Cohen. Deterrence and Incapacitation: Estimating the Effects of Criminal Sanctions on Crime Rates. National Academy of Sciences: Washington, D.C., 1978.
Van den Haag, Ernest. Punishing Criminals: Concerning a Very Old and Painful Question. Basic Books, Inc.: New York, 1975.