Essay - Death Penalty Thirty-eight States in the United States Currently Have...

Death Penalty

Thirty-eight states in the United States currently have ***** ability to execute prisoners. Michigan does not, but the suggestion that the death penalty be reenacted has *****en discussed from time to ***** in the state legislature. Historically, ***** state ***** been primarily against the use of capital punishment. In fact, ***** was ***** first government in the English-speak*****g world that abolished the death penalty. The ban on capital ***** in Michigan stemmed from the hang*****g ***** an innocent man in 1837. The fear ***** this would ever happen aga***** led to an incorporation of a ***** on ***** death ***** since 1846.

The legal issues, which can be used to argue against the death penalty, can generally be divided up in***** two separate headings. That is, that the prov*****ion ***** ***** ***** penalty is arbitrary in its application and generally only applies to people who are poor, or min*****ities or both. Another ***** that the death penalty is not useful - executions are expensive and appear to do little to reduce rates of crime. Proponents of the death penalty would argue ***** the rate of recidivism -of those who kill again - after the death penalty has been applied - is essentially zero. This would seem to reduce ***** amount of crime possible in the w*****ld. To many capital punishment foes, all that the death penalty seems to provide is an extraction of vengeance or revenge *****on ***** perpetra*****r.

Most recently, the news has been full of stories surround*****g ***** nature of capital pun*****hment itself, and the belief by opponents that the practice is too extreme. The Eighth Amendment ***** that all persons shall be protected from cruel and unusual pun*****hment. In her book, Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen Prejean, a well known death ***** abolitionist, describes in ***** ***** vision ***** a man be*****g *****d using the electric chair. But not only does Sister Prejean and o*****r like her, think that the death penalty is cruel and ***** pun*****hment. The application of the penalty, ***** the time leading up to the execution, is seen by ***** penalty opponents as cruel and unusual itself. Individuals on death row may wait years ***** actually have ***** scheduled and cancelled several times over before *****ir sentences are commuted to life in pr********** or the executions are carried out. Some death ***** advocates feel this is ***** it should be, since their victims suffered in their deaths. With most states moving away from the electric ***** and towards lethal injection, death penalty, the arguments of torture in the ***** of the ***** penalty through ei*****r the gas chamber or the ***** chair have somewhat diminished. New Y*****k has the unique distinction of being the latest to re*****enact death ***** legislation, effective September 1, *****995. Michigan may soon be number 39. These re-enactments may be considered to be somewhat ca*****icious, when one considers the ***** that Illinois Governor George Ryan actually called a moratorium on all death penalty cases in the state