Death Penalty In America

The death penalty or capital punishment has been in existence in America since the colonial times. What is capital punishment? Capital punishment is the authority to execute an individual who has committed a serious crime. Although the death penalty has been enforced for several hundred years in America, many states view it as controversial because of a human being’s civil rights. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, one of the characters, Tom Robinson, was sentenced to the death penalty for the horrendous crime of raping a young girl. Capital punishment is used when an individual has committed a major crime and been found guilty of that crime. During the colonial years, all states in America utilized capital punishment. Many states use this consequence for an individual’s crime that is deemed as a serious criminal act. Some of the crimes that can lead to the death penalty are: espionage, treason, and murder. However, on July 9, 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified and later used to challenge the death penalty. The Fourteenth Amendment states “Nor shall any state …show more content…
During the 1930s capital punishment reached the highest levels, but in the 1960s it reached the lowest levels. In some states the death penalty is still being utilized according to the crime committed. There are a total of thirty-one states that retain the death penalty in current day America. These thirty-one states all have different forms of the death penalty that can be applied. They include: hanging, lethal injection, shooting, gas chamber and the electric chair. Most southern states employ some type of capital punishment which includes Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird was convicted of rape and sentenced with the death penalty in the state of Alabama. Since 1976, Alabama ranks 6th in the country for using capital punishment as a consequence for serious