Capital Punishment The Death Penalty - 1482 Words

Alexandra Saczawa English 1 A Mrs. McElmoyl 12/12/14 Capital Punishment As stated by former governor of New York, Mario M. Cuomo, Always I have concluded the death penalty is wrong because it lowers us all; it is a surrender to the worst that is in us; it uses a power- the official power to kill by execution- that has never brought back a life, need inspired anything but hate. (Cuomo 1) This is one of the main arguments against capital punishment (also known as the death sentence.) Capital punishment is the ability for a government to execute a person who has committed a crime. People that agree with using the death penalty, will argue that the death penalty is a way to bring justice to a murderer. But, nobody has the power to end the†¦show more content†¦They tightened the restrictions on the death penalty, only allowing treason and murder to be punishable by death. In 1846, the first state abolished the death penalty. This state was Michigan, and the main reason for the abolishment was because there hadn t been an execution in Michigan since 1830. 6 years later, Rhode Island also abolished capital punishment, followed by Wisconsin in 1853. Over a century later, the federal case Furman v. Georgia helped abolish capital punishment in the entire United States. The Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was cruel and unusual punishment, which violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. However this didn t last too long. By 1975, 30 states had authorized the death penalty yet again. (Reggio 1-6) In the United States, there are 5 different ways in which the death penalty is done today and has been carried out in history. These methods include lethal injection, the electric chair, lethal gas, hanging, and the firing squad, but the most commonly used methods in modern times are lethal injection and the electric chair. Lethal injection is composed of 3 different chemicals. Thiopental sodium puts the criminal to sleep, potassium chloride stops his heart, and an anesthetic overdose finally ends his life. The criminal not only dies from the anesthesia but also respiratory and cardiac arrest while he is unconscious. When