Death Penalty Equality

In the past fifty years, there has been approximately half a million homicides. Of the half- a-million homicide, there was only about three thousand nine-hundred executions (Satris 278). Statistics show that one-third of all the death row inmates have an IQ of less than seventy declaring them mentally retarded. Also, about half of all inmates are illiterate (McKenna 178). Mentally retarded murderers could not be sentenced to the death penalty until the Penry vs Lyunaugh court case. The court ruled that the mentally retarded were eligible for the death penalty. The Stanford vs Kentucky court case declared that a murderer as young as sixteen year of age could be sentenced to the death penalty and executed (Katsh 261). In the past years, no more …show more content…
Defenders of the death penalty may be seen as “intolerable”. However the question is: Are people too tolerant of evil? Crimes that have have killed or can kill other human beings are known as capital crimes. The sentencing of capital punishment, or the death penalty, is carried out by the federal government. The government is in charge of the death sentencing and carrying out the death sentence. The government practices a death penalty by killing the convict who killed another individual intentionally. Since the first sentencing of the death penalty, there has been several methods used for an execution. The very first execution was by hanging the murderer. Over several years the death penalty’s execution has been by the electric chair, which shocks you to death, shooting individual with a gun, suffocation and, most recently, by lethal injection of a poison to cause one’s heart to …show more content…
Historically, the execution of a death row inmate was a public event. Some people would throw parties the night before the event, or even the date of an execution event. The executions during the early days were typically more harsh than the executions practiced today. The United States is one of the very few countries the still practice the death penalty. In some countries, one can be executed for whom an individual slept with. In the United States, an individual is sentenced to capital punishment for acts of murdering an individual by first degree murder. Some countries’ practice and use of the death penalty is more harsh than other counties. Some countries allow mentally retarded murderers to be executed. Other countries allow individuals younger than eighteen years of age to be executed, as well. It is all about one’s culture. An inmate awaiting their final sentencing from the judge is imprisoned. An inmate on death row is imprisoned typically for several years. While being imprisoned on death row, an inmate has no contact with the outside world. Inmates are isolated from all other inmates and the society. Death row inmates do not have the chance of seeing their family either. While on death row,