The death penalty has been around for centuries and virtually every country worldwide has used it at some point in their history. According to the Death Penalty Information Center some common ways of execution, centuries ago, were crucifixions, stoning people, beating to death, drownings, burning people alive and stabbing (DPIC, 2016). Not until the tenth century did hanging become popular and it was not present worldwide, just mainly in Britain. Later, in the 1700’s Britain’s ruler, William the Conqueror did not want anyone to be executed unless his country was in a time of war. However, the next ruler Henry VIII, found great pleasure in executions. He executed an estimated seventy-two thousand people. Henry VIII also liked to use methods
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People favoring the death penalty started to propose changes to the state law to go back to the death penalty. Some other states started writing new statutes they thought would be appropriate, 34 states proceeded with new death penalty laws in 1976 (DPIC, 2016). Other states wanted to limit Judge and Jury discretion and started forging new guidelines to follow in death penalty cases. Different states have different procedures, Utah, for example, has its own way of implementing the death penalty. The Utah bill states “If a court holds that execution by lethal injection is unconstitutional on …show more content…
The electric chair has been the standard for decades. This made way for the lethal injection and in 1977 Oklahoma became the first state to adopt lethal injection (“Death Penalty Focus”, 2004). The first person in history to receive lethal injection was Charles Brooks. Charles killed a man while he was on drugs with some friends, then decided to go a store and shoplift. After the shoplifting he went to a car dealership, test-drove a car where he kidnapped the salesman, took him to a hotel, beat him and then shot him in the head. Charles went to court, was found guilty and sentenced to death. However, with all of the new guidelines nothing happened for 5 years, thus moving forward, that is how all death penalty sentences were then carried out from that year
People favoring the death penalty started to propose changes to the state law to go back to the death penalty. Some other states started writing new statutes they thought would be appropriate, 34 states proceeded with new death penalty laws in 1976 (DPIC, 2016). Other states wanted to limit Judge and Jury discretion and started forging new guidelines to follow in death penalty cases. Different states have different procedures, Utah, for example, has its own way of implementing the death penalty. The Utah bill states “If a court holds that execution by lethal injection is unconstitutional on …show more content…
The electric chair has been the standard for decades. This made way for the lethal injection and in 1977 Oklahoma became the first state to adopt lethal injection (“Death Penalty Focus”, 2004). The first person in history to receive lethal injection was Charles Brooks. Charles killed a man while he was on drugs with some friends, then decided to go a store and shoplift. After the shoplifting he went to a car dealership, test-drove a car where he kidnapped the salesman, took him to a hotel, beat him and then shot him in the head. Charles went to court, was found guilty and sentenced to death. However, with all of the new guidelines nothing happened for 5 years, thus moving forward, that is how all death penalty sentences were then carried out from that year