The first death penalty law was adopted around the Eighteenth Century B.C.E. The law was put in place by King Hammurabi of Babylon. Capital punishment came to America during the European colonization in the Seventeenth Century. Since then, the United States was formed. Originally, every state used capital punishment up until 1846 when Michigan banned capital punishment for all crimes except treason. Between the years 1846 and 1887, three states completely abolished capital punishment starting a slow wave of the banning of capital punishment.1 Currently, nineteen states have mostly or completely gotten rid of the death penalty.2 The other thirty one states should follow in their footsteps and abolish the death penalty. Capital punishment
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Race, unfortunately, also has a say in who is given capital punishment. Dr. Allen Ault, former corrections commissioner of Georgia's execution chamber, says, “There's the racial element to the application of the ultimate punishment. Kill somebody white and you're three times more likely to get the death penalty than if you kill a black person”.11 According to statistics found by the Death Penalty Information Centre, a nationwide non-profit organization owned and run by Robert Dunham, a teacher of death penalty law with twenty five years experience as a capital litigator, 76% of victims are white and only 15% are black, in cases where the offender was sentenced to death. These statistics show that someone who kills a white person is five times more likely receive capital punishment.12,13 The suspect’s race and the jurors’ race contributes as well. In the trial of William Henry Hance (1994), a black man convicted of murdering three women, the majority of the jury members were white. One black juror later described an atmosphere of racial intimidation. A white juror had said (Hance’s) execution would leave "one less nigger to …show more content…
A 2005 study entitled “The Role of Moral Disengagement in the Execution Process”, conducted by Stanford psychology student Michael Osofsky, social cognitive theory pioneer Albert Bandura, and psychologist Philip Zimbardo, found that all prison guards, who were part of the execution process or not, had high rates on the CAPS-1 life event checklist, meaning they had witnessed extreme events. However, those who had been part of twenty or more executions showed almost no signs of depression and no evidence of post-traumatic syndrome disorder.15 Even with that finding, many prisons offer prison guards help such as counseling. Dr. Allen Ault stated in his interview on HARDtalk “Well, we provide physiological and psychological help for everyone involved, the officers and the warden that were involved, but then I realized the attorney general and I were not receiving any treatment, and it got harder and harder for me.”16 Dr. Ault left his post as Georgia's corrections chief in 1995. Since his retirement, he has received counseling to try to help him come to terms with his overwhelming sense of guilt.17 Jennie Lancaster, a retired prison warden of the North Carolina Department of Corrections, describes correctional officers as “silent actors” while being interviewed on The Oprah Winfrey Show. "There is a code of silence around
Race, unfortunately, also has a say in who is given capital punishment. Dr. Allen Ault, former corrections commissioner of Georgia's execution chamber, says, “There's the racial element to the application of the ultimate punishment. Kill somebody white and you're three times more likely to get the death penalty than if you kill a black person”.11 According to statistics found by the Death Penalty Information Centre, a nationwide non-profit organization owned and run by Robert Dunham, a teacher of death penalty law with twenty five years experience as a capital litigator, 76% of victims are white and only 15% are black, in cases where the offender was sentenced to death. These statistics show that someone who kills a white person is five times more likely receive capital punishment.12,13 The suspect’s race and the jurors’ race contributes as well. In the trial of William Henry Hance (1994), a black man convicted of murdering three women, the majority of the jury members were white. One black juror later described an atmosphere of racial intimidation. A white juror had said (Hance’s) execution would leave "one less nigger to …show more content…
A 2005 study entitled “The Role of Moral Disengagement in the Execution Process”, conducted by Stanford psychology student Michael Osofsky, social cognitive theory pioneer Albert Bandura, and psychologist Philip Zimbardo, found that all prison guards, who were part of the execution process or not, had high rates on the CAPS-1 life event checklist, meaning they had witnessed extreme events. However, those who had been part of twenty or more executions showed almost no signs of depression and no evidence of post-traumatic syndrome disorder.15 Even with that finding, many prisons offer prison guards help such as counseling. Dr. Allen Ault stated in his interview on HARDtalk “Well, we provide physiological and psychological help for everyone involved, the officers and the warden that were involved, but then I realized the attorney general and I were not receiving any treatment, and it got harder and harder for me.”16 Dr. Ault left his post as Georgia's corrections chief in 1995. Since his retirement, he has received counseling to try to help him come to terms with his overwhelming sense of guilt.17 Jennie Lancaster, a retired prison warden of the North Carolina Department of Corrections, describes correctional officers as “silent actors” while being interviewed on The Oprah Winfrey Show. "There is a code of silence around