Capital Punishment in Texas
Murder, felony manslaughter, espionage, genocide, and treason. Lethal injection, gas chamber, firing squad, electrocution, and hanging. If you commit one of the horrible crimes in the first list, you could end up choosing your method of death from the second list. Does knowing the possible consequences of capital offenses deter individuals from committing the crimes? Did it make you stop and think?
In the US the death penalty is used as a form of punishment for capital offenses. Capital punishment is an issue that greatly divides the US into two. While there are many people against it, there is also a large amount for it. Currently there are seventeen states that abolished the death penalty and still thirty-three …show more content…
Many people fear the thought of death; therefore if they are aware of death a consequence prior to their actions, they are less likely to commit those acts. Earnest van den Haag, a professor at Fordham University, wrote about the issue of deterrence:
"...capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else. They fear death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the courts... Hence, the threat of the death penalty may deter some murderers who otherwise might not have been deterred. And surely the death penalty is the only penalty that could deter prisoners already serving a life sentence and tempted to kill a guard, or offenders about to be arrested and facing a life sentence."
Haag further brings in the idea that capital punishment is the strongest deterrent society has against murder, which in many studies, has been …show more content…
Soon after, hanging fell out of favor and the electric chair took its place. According to www.mysa.com "Between February 1924 and July 1964, a total of 506 men and women we're placed on death row in Texas; of those, 361 men died in the electric chair. 361 people, 229 were black, 108 were white, 23 Mexican American. Texas executed its last inmate by electrocution on July 20, 1964. On June 29, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that capital punishment was indeed cruel and unusual punishment. At the time, there were 52 men in Texas with a death sentence. The Governor of Texas switched all of their death sentences to life in prison, and death row was abandoned by March 1973. Close revisions started to take place to the Texas Penal Code in 1973; as a result it allowed the death penalty to take place again starting January 1, 1974. In 1964, the Supreme Court declared that the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment and went against the Eighth Amendment to the U.S Constitution. As a result of this decision, Texas had to find a method that was still morally right and humane. Texas didn’t like the idea of throwing away their capital punishment, therefore on August 29,1977, Texas adopted lethal injection as their new method of
Murder, felony manslaughter, espionage, genocide, and treason. Lethal injection, gas chamber, firing squad, electrocution, and hanging. If you commit one of the horrible crimes in the first list, you could end up choosing your method of death from the second list. Does knowing the possible consequences of capital offenses deter individuals from committing the crimes? Did it make you stop and think?
In the US the death penalty is used as a form of punishment for capital offenses. Capital punishment is an issue that greatly divides the US into two. While there are many people against it, there is also a large amount for it. Currently there are seventeen states that abolished the death penalty and still thirty-three …show more content…
Many people fear the thought of death; therefore if they are aware of death a consequence prior to their actions, they are less likely to commit those acts. Earnest van den Haag, a professor at Fordham University, wrote about the issue of deterrence:
"...capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else. They fear death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the courts... Hence, the threat of the death penalty may deter some murderers who otherwise might not have been deterred. And surely the death penalty is the only penalty that could deter prisoners already serving a life sentence and tempted to kill a guard, or offenders about to be arrested and facing a life sentence."
Haag further brings in the idea that capital punishment is the strongest deterrent society has against murder, which in many studies, has been …show more content…
Soon after, hanging fell out of favor and the electric chair took its place. According to www.mysa.com "Between February 1924 and July 1964, a total of 506 men and women we're placed on death row in Texas; of those, 361 men died in the electric chair. 361 people, 229 were black, 108 were white, 23 Mexican American. Texas executed its last inmate by electrocution on July 20, 1964. On June 29, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that capital punishment was indeed cruel and unusual punishment. At the time, there were 52 men in Texas with a death sentence. The Governor of Texas switched all of their death sentences to life in prison, and death row was abandoned by March 1973. Close revisions started to take place to the Texas Penal Code in 1973; as a result it allowed the death penalty to take place again starting January 1, 1974. In 1964, the Supreme Court declared that the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment and went against the Eighth Amendment to the U.S Constitution. As a result of this decision, Texas had to find a method that was still morally right and humane. Texas didn’t like the idea of throwing away their capital punishment, therefore on August 29,1977, Texas adopted lethal injection as their new method of