The incredibly contentious debate over capital punishment is one that surpasses age, race, gender, political knowledge, and income level; all people are involved over this heated controversy, no matter who they are. It even seeps into popular literature; in J.R.R Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien writes, “Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” (“Death Penalty Quotes”, online). The death penalty has been employed as a method of legalized punishment since the Eighteenth Century B.C. under the Code of King Hammurabi ("Part I”, online.). Over the years, it has been evolving as society rethinks which crimes are worthy of execution. For instance, in the Sixteenth Century, under
