History Of The Death Penalty

Death to None The first ever recorded established death penalty law was created in the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the code of King Hammurabi of Babylon. This code would allow for the execution of a criminal if they had committed one of the twenty-five crimes listed (“Introduction to the Death Penalty”). The death penalty has been abolished in law or in practice by 140 countries around the world (“Facts About the Death Penalty”).The death penalty is a barbaric way of punishing a criminal, and America should join the list of countries that have outlawed the death penalty. Jeffrey A. Fagan, Professor of Law & Public Health; Co-Director, Center for Crime, Community, and Law states, “ The death penalty is the best way to deter crime and the most effective way to deal with a criminal who has …show more content…
Blacks and Latinos make up more than fifty-five percent of the current death row population, despite comprising only about twenty-five percent of the U.S. population. The majority of people waiting on death row are minority groups (“Race and the Death Penalty”). After World War II ended, the United States became the leaders in drafting an “international bill of rights” (“Drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”). This bill recognized that all people have certain inherent rights that cannot be taken away. This human rights document, the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, states “Life is a human right” ( “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”). Because the United States are an important part of the United Nations, they are violating basic human rights by having legal capital punishment. As long as governments have the right to extinguish lives, they maintain the power to deny citizens access to every other right promised to them (“Know Your Rights”).. By directly violating these rights, the country is digging itself a bigger and bigger hole that it will not be able to get out