The extent that the government should be allowed to carry out retribution for criminal activity is a highly debated topic. It is hard to remember any political campaign where one’s views on capital punishment was not an important stance, if not among the top controversial issues debated. Many people in the history of the U.S. have had to grapple with this question with the Supreme Court being the final legal judge for this decision when it comes to how the law and constitution are to be interpreted. For many, there are strong personal emotions tied into the topic, whether personally rooted in an experience or set in idealistic concepts of how justice is believed to be best served. For those who have been the victim of violent crime, or perhaps
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This sounds abhorrent in comparison with the current justice system that America embodies today, but understanding how the founding fathers truly viewed and handled legal matters is important so as to be able to learn from the more sullied times in history, even if blissful ignorance may be more pleasant. Feldman continues this discussion by bringing up the specific forms that execution can be carried out in and questions their constitutional merit. Arguing that,
The unavailability of lethal injection drugs has led some states to consider legislative proposals to reinstitute traditional methods of execution, including electrocution, firing squad, and lethal gas. The efforts of these states to reinstitute traditional methods of capital punishment raise the question of whether older methods of execution still comply with the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. . . Given the progress in science, medicine, and contemporary notions of morality and punishment, can execution methods once deemed acceptable still pass constitutional muster? …show more content…
Howard Wolinsky discusses this and shows the debate is one similar to the question if physician assisted suicides for terminal patients should be legal. It is important to realize the extent of pressure put on physicians to decline any participation in the legal execution process, both from social groups and, most importantly, the American Medical Association’s own licensing boards. The state governments that administer capital punishment often have a difficult time finding any physician willing to work with them and go to great lengths to attempt to ensure anonymity for any physicians that do agree to participate, including only paying them in cash (43). The fact that the core of what is one of the most important infrastructures in our modern society, the medical system, considers the ethical implications of the death penalty to be so high adds to the case against it. Like Wolinsky, Richard Nicholson also looks at the ethics of direct physician involvement in execution. He sums up the current form of this dilemma stating, “While lethal injections may be the least inhumane form of execution, they are also the form most likely to need the assistance of health care personnel acting in direct contravention of their duty to preserve life,” (5). He goes a step further by also questioning expert psychiatric testimonies
This sounds abhorrent in comparison with the current justice system that America embodies today, but understanding how the founding fathers truly viewed and handled legal matters is important so as to be able to learn from the more sullied times in history, even if blissful ignorance may be more pleasant. Feldman continues this discussion by bringing up the specific forms that execution can be carried out in and questions their constitutional merit. Arguing that,
The unavailability of lethal injection drugs has led some states to consider legislative proposals to reinstitute traditional methods of execution, including electrocution, firing squad, and lethal gas. The efforts of these states to reinstitute traditional methods of capital punishment raise the question of whether older methods of execution still comply with the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. . . Given the progress in science, medicine, and contemporary notions of morality and punishment, can execution methods once deemed acceptable still pass constitutional muster? …show more content…
Howard Wolinsky discusses this and shows the debate is one similar to the question if physician assisted suicides for terminal patients should be legal. It is important to realize the extent of pressure put on physicians to decline any participation in the legal execution process, both from social groups and, most importantly, the American Medical Association’s own licensing boards. The state governments that administer capital punishment often have a difficult time finding any physician willing to work with them and go to great lengths to attempt to ensure anonymity for any physicians that do agree to participate, including only paying them in cash (43). The fact that the core of what is one of the most important infrastructures in our modern society, the medical system, considers the ethical implications of the death penalty to be so high adds to the case against it. Like Wolinsky, Richard Nicholson also looks at the ethics of direct physician involvement in execution. He sums up the current form of this dilemma stating, “While lethal injections may be the least inhumane form of execution, they are also the form most likely to need the assistance of health care personnel acting in direct contravention of their duty to preserve life,” (5). He goes a step further by also questioning expert psychiatric testimonies