Abolishing The Death Penalty In The United States

Improved Essays
Capital Punishment

The death penalty goes back to the Fifth Century B.C, but the first established death penalty laws go back to the Eighteenth Century B.C. Punishment throughout the years has changed a lot over time. Death sentences used to be carried out by drownings, crucifixions, beaten to death, stoned, burning alive and impalement. Hanging became the main method of execution later in the Tenth Century A.D. Things changed in the Sixteenth Century, people were boiled, burned at the stake, hung, beheading and drawing and quartering. There were executions for capital offenses such as marrying a Jew, not confessing to a crime and treason.
Death penalty in America was influenced by Britain. When European settlers came to America they brought the practice of capital punishment. Captain George Kendall was the first recorded execution in Virginia in 1608 for being a spy for Spain. Execution laws were different from colony to colony.
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There are 19 states that have abolished the death penalty. Florida, Montana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have death-penalty laws for rape but have not applied them in decades.
I personally am for the death penalty, but there are pro’s and con’s. I believe that there should be capital punishment for rape/child molestation/ sex trafficking, murder/torture and anything that has to do with taking a person’s life or using a person’s life such as sexual assault in any form. In that sense, there should be more death penalty

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