The answer to the question of whether the death penalty is considered cruel and unusual punishment is a difficult choice for me to make and admit. However after all my research and examining all the facts, I have reached the conclusion that the death penalty itself DOES NOT constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The reason for this is simple: most of the procedures that are supposed to happen when an inmate receives the death penalty are supposed to be quick and painless. Although a significant portion of executions are botched and cause the inmate to suffer extreme and prolonged pain, this is not the intended way that the execution was meant to be carried out. Any previous grounds for protesting the death penalty by calling it cruel and unusual have been ruled out as well. In 1972, Furman v. Georgia managed to successfully suspend the death penalty nationally, on the grounds that it was racially discriminate. But by 1976, the Supreme Court overruled Furman v. Georgia in Gregg v. Georgia, by saying that the death penalty was no longer a discriminatory practice.
I despise the death penalty. I think it is morally wrong and that every convicted felon should be given a chance to reform no matter how severe or brutal the crime they committed was. But the law does not deal in morals. It only upholds order, and does anything it must in order to do so. I think that given time, the death penalty can be declared unconstitutional in other aspects, such as the fact that it deprives individuals of civil liberties, but for now, the argument that the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment is a dead end. But as Source 3 said, the public’s perception of what exactly constitutes cruel and unusual punishment changes every generation, so hopefully by the next generation, the public will realize that the death penalty is a morally corrupt and barbaric institution of old and abolish the whole system. |
The Death Penalty | The answer? |