Thirty Eight Years

By vicky

Tue, 28 Sep 2004

1628 reads

Thirty Eight Years: Capital Punishment in Britain and the US

Capital punishment means the legal execution of prisoners for
committing crimes. Its use has been one of the most controversial
arguments throughout history, with many diverse social, religious,
political and moral factions each having a different point of view, and
the issue is still debated daily. Britain abolished the death penalty
in 1965, but it is still practiced as punishment for certain crimes in
several places in the world, most notably in the United States of
America. This essay will outline the history of the death penalty,
concentrating on both Britain and America's use of capital punishment.
It will include the various methods most commonly used and put forward
the main arguments for and against the practice of legal executions,
from a moral point of view.

"As far back as the ancient laws of China, the death penalty has been
established as a punishment for crimes." (Randa 1997 p5)

Evidence for the use of capital punishment in ancient civilizations has
been found in some of the oldest historical documents. The Code of King
Hammurabi of Babylon, for instance, states that it was a punishment for
twenty - five different crimes although, interestingly, murder wasn't
one of them. The manner of death in ancient times was often horrific
such as the Roman punishment of placing a prisoner in a sack containing
a dog, a rooster, a viper and an ape and immersing it in water, which
was apparently the penalty for murdering a parent (parricles). (Randa
1997)

Probably the most famous execution in ancient times was in c399 BC of
the philosopher, Socrates, who was forced to drink "from the official
cup of Hemlock poison" (Tarrant 1993 pxxix) for the crime of corrupting
the youth.

The largest impact on Western attitudes towards capital punishment has
probably been the Bible. Which states that death should be the
punishment for crimes from murder - "Whoever strikes a person mortally
shall be put to death" (Exodus 21:12) to fornication - "If?evidence of
the young woman's virginity was not found then they shall bring the
young woman out to the entrance of her father's house and stone her to
death" (Deuteronomy 22:20-22 and the most famous law of all is that
crimes should be punished like for like, as it states in Exodus,

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (20:24)

With many of society's use of executions being linked to their ideas
about the judgement and nature of God, the change in perception of Him,
can be seen in the change in various methods of punishment over the
centuries, as Maguire et all (2002 p 222) puts it,

"Increasingly?.God, rather than being the God of wrath and vengeance,
was understood as the benevolent creator; He had never intended
barbarous punishments, and consequently, far more appropriate than the
gallows was the prison."

The change from Old Testament ideology to New Testament and beginnings
of Christianity was marked with probably the most notorious execution
of all time - that of Jesus Christ in approximately 29AD outside
Jerusalem. The punishment was death by crucifixion, by the nailing or
binding to a cross, a common form of capital punishment from 6th
Century BC to 4th Century AD most particularly by the Egyptians,
Persians, Carthaginians and Romans. In 337AD the first Emperor
Constantine abolished this form of execution after converting to
Christianity.

Britain has a long history of the use of capital punishment, with many
different variations on the way it was carried out and for what crime.
These include: throwing into a quagmire (common in the 5th Century);
drowning, burning, hanging (adopted in England in 1214 when a
nobleman's son was hanged for piracy), beheading (usually reserved for
the upper classes) and boiling. In the 10th Century, during William I's
reign, the death penalty was suspended as he did not believe in taking
life except through battle.

The middle ages saw many instances of capital punishment. In Henry
VIII's reign it is estimated that as many as 72,000 people were put to
death by one form or another, including two of his six wives, Anne
Boleyn for treason and Catherine Howard for adultery and immoral
conduct, who were both beheaded in the Tower of London, as befitted
their status.

One form of execution in this time was the punishment of being hanged
drawn and quartered. Reserved mainly for the most heinous crimes, such
as treason, the prisoner would be hanged until he was almost dead
(meaning his neck would deliberately not be broken, although he would
be strangled) then he would be disembowelled, meaning his entrails
would be removed while he was still alive. Usually dead by this time,
the body would be cut into four pieces and buried separately, the
belief being that the soul could not live on if the body was not
intact.

Executions were a public event. Often seen as entertainment,
particularly by the lower classes, and could draw considerable crowds
if the convict was particularly famous or notorious, such as Dick
Turpin, an infamous highwayman who was executed on April 10th 1739
outside the city of York.

Heresy and witchcraft were common accusations in a time when the
Church's power was at its height and particularly during the
Reformation. The numbers executed for this crime have been estimated
from 30,000 to as many as 100,000 people, mostly women, and usually
without a real trial. One popular method of determining a witch
composed of tying rocks to her feet and throwing her in a river. If she
sank she was innocent, as witches would supposedly float. Of course, in
order to prove her innocence she had to drown, which was merely,
therefore, another form of execution. However, due to the Christian
beliefs regarding everlasting life, it was generally believed that as
long as your soul wasn't damned it was fine to die, and indeed kill, in
this manner.

The number of executionable crimes in Britain continued to increase
until they peaked in the 18th Century when 222 offences, called the
Bloody Code were considered to be punishable by death. These, according
to Randa (1997 p 41) included,

"stealing from a house in the amount of forty shillings, stealing from
a shop the value of five shillings, robbing a rabbit warren, cutting
down a tree and counterfeiting tax stamps."

However, many of these crimes meant the same thing, such as larceny,
robbery, pick pocketing and so on, and they often referred to
particular parts of the country, such as the Queen's Royal Estates etc.
In addition to this although the number of capital crimes had
increased, the number of executions actually decreased during this
time. This was mainly due to the Transportation Act of 1718 which meant
that many prisoners were sent to the colonies, such as America and
later Australia, who would otherwise have received the death penalty.
Without an effective deterrent the number of crimes began to rise once
again until the 1752 Murder Act which ordered bodies of convicted
murderers to be sent to surgeons for dissection.

By 1823 five reforms had taken place exempting nearly a hundred crimes
from the death penalty, encouraged by the writings of various
influential thinkers such as the Frenchman Voltaire, who opposed
torture and death as punishments, and the philosopher Jeremy Bentham,
who wrote Introduction to the Principle of Morals and Legislation. The
reform movement increased between 1832 and 1837. In 1840 an attempt was
made to abolish the death penalty altogether led, mainly, by the
Quakers, otherwise known as, the Religious Society of Friends, who
believed that all life is sacred, but it failed due to lack of
influential support, despite the existence of several reformer MPs.
When complete abolition could not be achieved, however, the reformers
concentrated in limiting its severity and several more crimes were
changed to carry life imprisonment or transportation penalties.

Reforms were succeeding more and more during the 19th Century and
consequently all executions were hangings, as it was believed to be
more humane. A practice known as Gibbeting was suspended in 1834. This
is the custom of leaving the dead body of a hanged criminal on display,
usually from a gallows, as an example to others. On September 15th 1824
a letter was written by a Mr William Sykes to the, then, Prime
Minister, Robert Peel complaining about this 'spectacle' on the bank of
the river Thames,

"Tyburn, Kennington, Hounslow, Wimbledon are all freed from the sad
practice: why should it be perpetuated to the disgrace and nuisance of
the Port of London?" (Source - Public Record Office. Home Office
44/14)

The practice of Gibbeting was abolished 10 years later. Moreover,
hanging ceased to be a public event toward the end of the century. The
last was on 26th of May 1868 of Michael Barrett, a member of the Irish
Republican Brotherhood who was convicted of 12 murders after his group
blasted the wall of Clerkenwell House in an attempt to release two of
his comrades. The place of execution was in front of Newdigate prison
as had been usual since 1783, although after the new legislation that
year they took place within the prison walls.

The last woman to be executed was Ruth Ellis on July 14 1955. She was
convicted of murdering her lover, David Blakely and her death caused an
outbreak of public controversy which is believed to have propelled the
reform movement against the death penalty significantly. A crowd of
about 1,000 people waited outside Holloway prison in silence and prayer
until the notices of execution were posted.

The last people hanged were Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans on August 13th
1964. Complete abolition of the death penalty in Britain, except for
treason and piracy, was achieved in 1965, by an overwhelming vote of
355 to 170 in Parliament after seven hours of debate.

Britain's history of capital punishment influenced many of the, now
former, colonies, in particular America. The first recorded execution
in America was in 1608 when George Kendall of Virginia was hanged for
the crime of "supposedly plotting to betray the British to the
Spanish." (Randa 1997 p 56)

In 1612, Virginia's Governor, Sir Thomas Dale, invoked the Divine,
Moral and Martial Laws that made execution the penalty for many
offences, such as stealing (especially chickens), killing dogs and
horses without permission and trading with Indians. The first legal
execution took place in 1622, in Virginia of a thief named Daniel
Frank. However many of the colonies did not evoke the death penalty at
this time. New England's capital punishments were evoked in 1636 - 1647
for such crimes as, murder, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, idolatry,
blasphemy, assault in anger, rape, manstealing, perjury in a capital
trial, rebellion, manslaughter, poisoning and bestiality. Usually these
were accompanied by the corresponding scripture from the Bible such as,
for witchcraft, in Exodus (22:18)

"You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live"

By 1720 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts only recognised seven capital
offences: murder, sodomy, burglary, buggery, arson, rape and treason.
The New York colony's capital crime included killing by lying in wait
or poisoning, traitorous denial of the King's rights and striking of
ones mother or father (on the complaint of both).

South Jersey had no death penalty at this time and in Pennsylvania
death was only reasonable for murder and treason, however these were
the only two crimes of the region.

In 1682 William Penn's Great Act was passed in Pennsylvania and by 1776
most of the other colonies had followed suit with crimes of arson,
piracy, treason, murder, sodomy, burglary, robbery, rape, horse
stealing, slave rebellion and counterfeiting being punishable by death.
Hanging was the usual form of execution.

The laws of the states varied over the next year, with some becoming
more harsh, for instance North Carolina included the crimes of slave
stealing, stealing bank notes, castration, duelling where death occurs,
hiding a slave with the intent to free him, taking a free Negro out of
the state with the intent to sell him, inciting slaves to rebel,
circulating seditious literature among slaves and mayhem as capital
offences. This was mainly because the state did not have a prison in
which to keep offenders.

The first reforms of the death penalty in America took place between
1776 and 1800. A complete revision of Virginia's laws was ordered by
Thomas Jefferson, however the bill to reduce the penalty to just murder
and treason was defeated by one vote.

The Quakers were as active at reform in this country as they had been
in Britain. However many other people also agreed with the reform of
capital crimes. Dr Benjamin Ruth, an influential Statesman wanted a
complete abolition in Philadelphia. William Bradford, Attorney General
of Pennsylvania admitted that execution was useless in preventing
crime, and often did more harm than good as many jury's would not
convict because of the mandatory sentence. In 1794 Pennsylvania
abolished capital punishment except for murder in the first degree, or
pre - meditated murder, which was the first time murder had been
categorised. In 1796 New York reduced the number of capital crimes from
thirteen to two and began construction on the state's first
penitentiary. The other states to follow suit were Vermont (1797)
reduced to three, Maryland (1810) reduced to four, with New Hampshire
(1812) and Ohio (1815) reduced to two. They all built penitentiaries.
However, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut all
increased the number of capital offences in their states.

The first great reform period was between 1833 and 1853. By 1835 Rhode
Island, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey had all
abolished public hangings, by 1849 fifteen states followed suit. Maine
passed a law in 1835 saying that all capital offenders were to stay in
prison until one year had elapsed before they were executed and then
only by order of the Governor. Subsequently no one was executed in
Maine for 27 years.

The biggest voice in protest about reform was the clergy, usually
Calvinist Congregationalists and Presbyterians who were led by George
Cheever and believed that the death penalty was the right of man given
by God.

In 1846 Michigan became the first state to abolish capital punishment,
except for in the case of treason against the state. There hadn't been
an execution in Michigan for 16 years (since before it became a state)
and so seemed unnecessary. Rhode Island joined them in 1852 and a year
later Massachusetts limited its capital crimes after a,

"Gruesome execution in which the victim struggled for five minutes at
the end of a rope, and a full eighteen minutes passed before his heart
finally quit." (Randa 1997 p 81)

Towards the end of the 19th Century the reform for slavery took the
place of capital punishment as far as the public's opinion was
concerned and the movement hardly made any headway. Mandatory death
sentences were revoked but mainly to try to increase convictions of
murders as it became discretionary and so encompassed a wide variety of
killings. Maine abolished the death penalty twice before 1887 but
brought it back twice also. Iowa abolished for 6 years and Kansas
evoked Maine Law as de facto abolition.

Between 1872 and 1895 very little happened as regards capital
punishment in the way of reform. However the rivalry between two
electric companies - Edison, who sold direct current systems and
Westinghouse Company, who sold alternating current systems led to the
invention of the electric chair when Edison Company tried to prove
alternating current dangerous by electrocuting animals. Subsequently,
in 1888 New York installed the first electric chair, after a Supreme
Court ruled that it could not be deemed to be a cruel and unusual
punishment which would have made it against the Constitution. William
Kemmler, the first man to be executed this way, had been convicted of
murdering his girlfriend, Tillie Ziegler with an axe. He had accepted
his guilt and said he was prepared to hang. This first electrocution
was haphazard and, by the account of The Times (August 6th 1890)

" a failure and execution by electricity will be abandoned."

Nevertheless, this form of punishment, which involves strapping the
criminal into the specially constructed chair, attaching one electrode
to his scalp and another to the calf of one leg, moistening the
electrodes with salt solution to ensure contact and sending an
alternative electrical current of over 1,500 Volts through his body
until he is dead, has continued to be used by various states in America
for 113 years.

The second period of death penalty reform in America took place between
1895 and 1917. In 1897 the number of federal crimes was reduced by
Congress. In 1907 Kansas abolished the death penalty completely and
between 1911 and 1917 seven other states: Minnesota, North Dakota,
Tennessee (except for rape), South Dakota, Oregon, Arizona and Missouri
had all followed suit.

However, between 1917 and 1955, the death penalty reforms had once
again been superseded with other concerns, particularly the two world
wars. By 1920 the States of Arizona, Oregon and Washington had restored
capital punishment and in 1924 the Tong war gang member Gee Jon became
the first man to be executed by cyanide gas. According to Randa (1997 p
101),

"The state wanted to secretly pump cyanide gas into Jon's cell at night
while he was asleep as a more humanitarian way of carrying out the
penalty, but, technical difficulties prohibited this and a 'special'
gas chamber was hastily built."

More states began to use gas chambers and electric chairs as the
preferred method of carrying out capital sentences, especially after
instances of 'botched' executions such as in 1930 when Mrs Eva Dugan,
the first woman to be given the death sentence by Arizona was supposed
to be hanged but instead had her head ripped form her body because,
apparently, the executioner had misjudged the drop.

The abolitionist movement grew across the country but the public's
opinion now seemed to be more against the execution of particular
individuals rather than the act itself. So much so that during the
paranoia and hysteria of the anti - Communist period, the Texas
Governor, Allan Shivers, put forward the idea that the death penalty
ought to be the punishment for membership in the Communist Party and,
although it never became so, many people agreed.

After studies and investigations into the death penalty, and several
books and films written by or about prisoners on death row, such as
convicted kidnapper Caryl Chessman's Cell 2455 Death Row and Trial by
Ordeal or the film I want to Live! about Barbara Graham, States
reformed. In 1957 Hawaii and Alaska abolished the punishment. Delaware
also abolished the death penalty (in 1958) but then reinstated it in
1961. In 1963 Michigan removed the capital offence of treason and a
referendum voted for complete abolition in Oregon in 1964. A year later
Iowa, New York, West Virginia and Vermont had all accepted the reform,
as did New Mexico in 1969.

For a period of three years no state had the right to execute prisoners
for any crime after a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the
case of Furman v. Georgia when the majority vote (5:4) stated that the
way the sentencing legislation was written, particularly discriminatory
guidelines, made the punishments cruel and unusual and therefore
unconstitutional. However pro - capital punishment thinkers began to
propose new statutes and by 1975 almost 200 people were on death row in
30 states. In 1976 the new laws in Georgia were approved by the Supreme
Court, and executions began again.

The first death by lethal injection occurred in Oklahoma in 1977,
mainly for financial reasons. Their electric chair, not having been
used for eleven years, would be extremely expensive to repair, a new
gas chamber would cost about $200,000 but a lethal injection would cost
as little as $10 per execution.

Since 1977 there have been many appeals both at State and Supreme Court
level. In Thompson v. Oklahoma (1987) the Supreme Court came back with
a vote of 5:3 in favour, based on the fact that the defendant was a
minor (16 at the time of the murder), however, the gruesome nature of
the crime, which included Thompson and three others torturing and
murdering his brother - in - law, caused one of the Judges to suggest
that they should lower the legal age for execution, and in fact many of
the inmates currently on death row were minors when they committed the
crimes. In 1989 the Supreme Court ruled against the abolition of the
death penalty for the mentally disabled, saying that a person,
considered retarded, but mentally sane, being executed was not cruel
and unusual even though the defendant in the case Penry v. Lynaugh had
the approximate mental age of a six year old child.

According to Moore (2002 p206),

"Currently the total number of death row inmates tops 3,700. Seventy of
those death row inmates are minors??despite the fact that the same
court (which allowed this) ruled that sixteen year olds do not have
'the maturity or judgement' to sign contracts. No other industrialized
nation executes its children."

Today thirty eight states in America have the death penalty, as does
the military and the federal government. Nearly one third of all US
executions are carried out in Texas. There are five methods permitted
which are: lethal injection (688 people in 37 states since 1976);
electrocution (151 people in 10 states since 1976); gas chamber (11
people in 5 states since 1976); hanging (3 people in 3 states since
1976); and firing squad (2 people, in 2 states since 1976). However,
the lethal injection has been almost universally accepted, only
Nebraska insists on this method of carrying out the death sentence, and
in several states the condemned is given the choice.

The Supreme Court Justice, William Brennan, Jr described electrocution
as,

"Nothing less than the technological equivalent of burning people at
the stake." (Source - Death Penalty Information centre 2003)

Reform of the death penalty in the United States is still ongoing, just
as it is in the rest of the world. Amnesty International
(www.amnsty,org) reports that, "More than three countries a year on
average have abolished the death penalty for all crimes in the past
decade" and the world wide moral debate is ongoing. There are many
reasons both for and against the argument of whether or not the State
has the right to execute its prisoners, and there is no doubt that the
majority of countries in the world have either abolished or are
operating de facto reform, with only 67 countries still allowing it and
81\% of all executions carried out in China, Iran and the USA. However,
despite the overwhelming trend toward reform there are still many
people who agree wholeheartedly with capital punishment.

Many abolitionists consider the act of execution to be a murderous one
- the old quandary of the sentence being as bad as the crime (usually
murder) itself. A common anti - capital punishment slogan in America
states, "We kill people to show people that killing people is wrong."
However, it is argued by those in favour that the penalty of death is
applied as punishment for murder not killing. Murder is defined as an
unlawful, malicious, premeditated killing of one human by another, and
pro speakers point out that execution is, lawful, non - malicious and
is not carried out by an individual but by a government.

This argument about the state, rather than the individual, further
enhances the pro death penalty argument by pointing out the social
contract made between the state and the individual. This is the
theoretical agreement which a citizen and a society makes with each
other. The citizen promises to pay taxes and obey laws in exchange for
protection and aid from the government.

"At the societal level, the death penalty is necessary to
counterbalance the potential abuse of American freedom." (Hornsby,
10/98)

Essentially this argument is that, having disobeyed the society's laws,
the convicted felon has, in effect, broken his social contract and so
gives up the rights and privileges of being a citizen, while the victim
(or other potential victims) who have kept faith with the state,
deserve to live free from fear and that one way to ensure this is to
remove the criminal. Another variation on this theme is that if a would
- be murderer is killed by his victim, the victim (by law) would not be
punished. This is because the would - be murderer broke the social
contract and now has few rights. Therefore, if is life is forfeit
justly in this way, why then not by execution?

Capital punishment is regarded then as not only the right but also the
duty of the state. However, the abolitionist's argument to this is
simple. The state should not be able to take away what it did not give
- life. This of course it a little too simplistic as the state does in
fact give life, at least by way of public services, such as roads,
drainage, healthcare, transportation, education etc However the
abolitionist argument is referring more to the creation of life, rather
than the consequent lifestyle. The first statement of any Human Rights
Act is that all human beings are afforded The Right To live. According
to amnesty International (www.amnesty.org) capital punishment is,

"The ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. It violates the
right to live."

However, the United States Supreme Court has ruled, on more than one
occasion, that the death penalty is not a cruel and unusual punishment.
Furthermore, it argues, that the method of lethal injection, which has
been adopted by all but one state as their preferred choice, includes
the condemned being administered thiopental sodium which puts him to
sleep, as in an operation, before he is injected with potassium
chloride which stops his heart. This, it is argued, is quite
humane.

Of course mistakes do occur. In several cases, the condemned has
reacted badly to the drug and reports of effects such as a heaving
chest, gasping, choking, back arching off the gurney etc, are listed.
In addition to this, particularly in cases involving habitual drug
abusers, veins often became difficult to locate to administer the
lethal dose. In the case of Randy Woolls in Texas on 20th august
1986,

"A drug addict, Woolls helped the execution technicians find a usable
vein for the execution." (Death Penalty Information Centre 2003)

This is not an uncommon experience and,in extreme cases, a procedure
known as cut downs is performed, where the condemned's groin or calf is
sliced open to reveal a vein. As the aesthetic is administered
(usually) by injection as well, naturally they are in a great deal of
pain.

All of the other forms of execution show instances of 'botched jobs'.
In recent years these include several accounts of the condemned
bursting into flame during an electrocution due to lack of conducting
solution on the electrodes (usually from a wet sponge placed on his
scalp), incorrect voltage settings and / or application of connecting
wires, and one gruesome account of execution by lethal gas, when the
condemned, Jimmy Lee Gray (2/10/83) in Mississippi,

"Died, gasping for air, banging his head against a steel pole in the
gas chamber while the reporters counted his moans (eleven )" (Death
Penalty Information Centre 2003)

Later it was discovered that the executioner was drunk.

Accounts such as these are, for death penalty abolitionists very
compelling evidence for the argument that capital punishment is not
humane.

Moreover they state, the large number of miscarriages of justice which,
according to the Scientific American (02.01) have been found in 68\% of
subsequent appeals between 1973 and 1995, and the number of people
executed who were later found to be innocent since 1990 was 23. All of
which, they argue, proves that the death penalty is immoral. The pro
capital punishment speakers however, contend that the risk of executing
the innocent does not, immediately, rule out the use of the death
penalty, as these cases are rare, and quite often, the appeal is one
due to technicalities, rather than innocence. They further suggest that
placing a habitual murderer in a prison does nothing but risk the lives
of the inmates and guards, as once a life sentence is given, there
seems little to deter them from killing again, while a dead murderer
cannot ever kill again. It is generally accepted that the use of the
death penalty does not significantly reduce crime,

"One fact has been clearly established: the severity in punishments in
no way diminishes the number of crimes." (Maclaughlin et al 2003
p71)

However those who are pro capital punishment point out the significant
numbers of re - offenders, both inside and outside prison (often due to
appeal) suggest that, had execution taken place previously, the
subsequent crimes would not have taken place. Abolitionists usually
respond to this argument by suggesting life sentences, away form the
public, and better security in prisons.

Anti abolitionists state that they are in the right to believe in
capital punishment for various other reasons. One of the most
compelling, in their view, is the religious point of view. This is
actually an argument as well as a subsequent counter - argument for the
opposing movement's opinion. The idea being that the Bible states that
a penalty of death must be used for various crimes, including murder.
The abolitionists point out that there are many laws, as well as
capital offences in the Bible which do not apply to today and that the
teachings need to be adapted for modern day. Their other argument
against the death penalty source in the Bible is that it is clearly
stated that there should be Like for Like. This is obviously not
possible today as we do not countenance the rape of rapists as
punishment for instance. The subsequent counter argument for this is
that the only sure way to prevent a felon form committing their crime
again is by executing them. For this reason rape for rapists as a
punishment would do nothing but degrade the punisher, and it is not
even guaranteed of success.

One of the major issues about abolishing the death penalty, as far as
anti - abolitionists are concerned, is where to keep the prisoners.
There simply isn't room for the excess, they claim, and, due to
financial reasons many states have had to cut back on police, prison
wardens and funds for prisons. However, not only is it fairly morally
reprehensible to put men and women to death for reasons of money, but
it also makes no logical sense. It takes an average of 10.6 years from
conviction to execution in the US. The approximate cost of a murder
trial in Los Angeles County is $625,000 which becomes $1.9 million if
the death penalty is sought. For the New York State to keep five men on
death row for 5 years it cost approximately $23 million. There are
currently over 3,700 inmates on death row in America.

They include the mentally retarded and minors. The united states was
one of only two countries who haven't signed the Unite Nations
Conventions on the Rights of the Child. The other being Somalia.
According to Moore (2002 p206) this is because,

"It contains a provision prohibiting the execution of children under
eighteen and we want to remain free to execute our children."

The fact that capital punishment continues to be a common practice in
32 of the 50 American States, 38 years after Britain, its friend and
ally, abolished the practice is very difficult to understand. There are
many reasons both for and against the use of the death penalty and this
essay has shown the major considerations, with particular emphasis on
moral issues, as pertains to both America specifically and the
abolition debate generally. These considerations have been placed
within a background of the history of the death penalty, in both
Britain and America, and has used statistics, case studies and
definitions of the methods of execution as points of reference. The
debate of whether the state has the right to execute its prisoners is
ongoing, with both sides adamantly convinced they are right. However,
the vast cases of reform and abolition throughout the world in the last
decade seems to show a trend toward this end and so, perhaps, abolition
may occur within our lifetimes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Economist, The (3/3/03) A New Insanity defence
London: Volume 336

Foucault, M (1977) Dicipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
London: Penguin

Hornsby B (10/1998) The Death Penalty - Should We Use It or Not?
Florida State Times - Olnline

Hume, D. (2000 reprinted from 1777 edition) Enquiries concerning Human
Understanding and concerning the principles of morals (Third
edition)
Oxford. Clarendon Press

Maguire, M, Morgan, R and Reiner, R (2002) the Oxford Handbook of
Criminology (third Edition)
Padstow: Oxford University Press

Metzger, B. M. (Chair, NRSV Bible Translation Committee) (1989) Holy
Bible: New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha
New York. Oxford University Press

Mclaughlin, E, Muncie, J and Hughes, G (2003) Criminological
Perspectives: Essential Readings (second Edition)
Trowbridge: Open University/ Sage Publications

Moore, M (2002) Stupid White Men
St Ives: Penguin

More, T (1965, Translated by Turner, P) Utopia
St Ivey: Penguin

Nietzsche, F and Hollingdale, R.J. (Translator) and Tanner, M
(Introduction) (1990)
Beyond Good and Evil
London. Penguin

Randa, L E (ed) (1997) Society's Final Solution: A History and
Discussion of the Death Penalty
New York: University Press of America
Rice, C E (04/04/1994) The Death Penalty Dilema
The New American - Online

Scientific American, The (02/01) The Morality of the Death Penalty:
Death Defying Statistics

Tarrant H (ed ) (1993) Plato: The Last Days of Socrates
St Ives: Penguin

Vardy, P, and Grosch, P. (1999) The puzzle of Ethics
London. Fount (Harper Collins)

Writer, A (1890) Execution by Electricity
The Times - Archive Online

Internet Sources

www.amnesty.org

www.carmical.net

www.deathpenaltyinfo.org

www.deathpenaltyreligios.org

www.derechos.org

www.fsu.edu

www.iuinfo.indiana.edu