The U.S. Needs to Drop the Death Penalty
In 1991 Ray Krone was wrongfully convicted of murder. He was immediately faced with the death penalty. It wasn’t until after years on death row and 10 years total in prison that he was proven innocent because of a new DNA test (McKellar). This is just one example of the poor system of execution in the United States. The death penalty has been around in the states since colonial times.It has always had people opposed to it but after many legal pressures the United States congress declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972. After 4 years the court reversed its decision. The death penalty has been carried out in many ways in the United States since then for example firing squad, electric chair, …show more content…
In 2015 Richard Wolf and Kevin Johnson wrote that in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Arizona inmates were see gasping for air, moaning and writhing in pain while the three drug cocktail, made of a sedative, a paralytic, and usually potassium chloride to stop the person’s heart. This raises the question of whether or not what is considered the most humane form of execution is just that. The U.S constitution prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment, the death penalty can be considered just that at this point with states struggling to find ways to execute inmates without them “suffering”. With the aforementioned european ban on drug trade with the United States states struggle to find ways to obtain drugs that pass the Supreme Court’s bar of causing “ substantial risk of serious harm”(“Status of Death Penalty”). Lethal injection being the most common way of execution in America is at risk of being basically ruled unconstitutional in itself because of the risk the only available drugs harming, instead of killing, inmates. The alternatives don’t sound much unlike cruel and unusual punishment either shooting a person in the head, shocking them to death, or suffocating them with nitrogen gas. The latter of the being used in some of the worst tragedies in history as torture. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that the death penalty “Involves three fundamental constitutional defects:(1)serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty’s penological purpose.”(Heyns, Mendez). One of the handful of people who knows the most about the constitution list the purpose is undermined because with the many appeals inmates have. Many of these appeal although are allowed as precautions to keep from executing innocent people, but there are inmates that admit
In 1991 Ray Krone was wrongfully convicted of murder. He was immediately faced with the death penalty. It wasn’t until after years on death row and 10 years total in prison that he was proven innocent because of a new DNA test (McKellar). This is just one example of the poor system of execution in the United States. The death penalty has been around in the states since colonial times.It has always had people opposed to it but after many legal pressures the United States congress declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972. After 4 years the court reversed its decision. The death penalty has been carried out in many ways in the United States since then for example firing squad, electric chair, …show more content…
In 2015 Richard Wolf and Kevin Johnson wrote that in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Arizona inmates were see gasping for air, moaning and writhing in pain while the three drug cocktail, made of a sedative, a paralytic, and usually potassium chloride to stop the person’s heart. This raises the question of whether or not what is considered the most humane form of execution is just that. The U.S constitution prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment, the death penalty can be considered just that at this point with states struggling to find ways to execute inmates without them “suffering”. With the aforementioned european ban on drug trade with the United States states struggle to find ways to obtain drugs that pass the Supreme Court’s bar of causing “ substantial risk of serious harm”(“Status of Death Penalty”). Lethal injection being the most common way of execution in America is at risk of being basically ruled unconstitutional in itself because of the risk the only available drugs harming, instead of killing, inmates. The alternatives don’t sound much unlike cruel and unusual punishment either shooting a person in the head, shocking them to death, or suffocating them with nitrogen gas. The latter of the being used in some of the worst tragedies in history as torture. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that the death penalty “Involves three fundamental constitutional defects:(1)serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty’s penological purpose.”(Heyns, Mendez). One of the handful of people who knows the most about the constitution list the purpose is undermined because with the many appeals inmates have. Many of these appeal although are allowed as precautions to keep from executing innocent people, but there are inmates that admit