The purpose of this research is to present an argument in favor of the use of capital Punishment. also known as the death penalty. Issues addressed are legal aspects of capital punishment, the rationale in favor of capital punishment, statistical evaluation of the arguments, as well as social and moral aspects of capital Punishment.
Article VIII of the U.S. Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual Punishments inflicted on persons accused or convicted of crimes. Whether the original intention included eventual abolition or retention of the death penalty for any or all crimes has yet to be determined. As legislators change, so does legislation regarding capital Punishment. For example, the moratorium on capital punishment that began in 1967 and seemed to promise a new era now appears to have been only a brief interlude. Since 1972, 37 states have enacted one or more capital statutes. Beginning in 1976 a series of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the basic proposition that if legislature enacts a capital statute it may do so in the confidence that nothing in the federal constitution is thereby necessarily violated. In 1984 the Senate voted to restore the federal death penalty. In 1988 a provision in the drug bill passed by Congress permits the death penalty for murders committed by people involved in at least two continuing criminal operations involving drugs or for someone who kills a police officer in the course of a drug-related crime. In publicizing drug problems, President Bush has renewed his call for mandatory federal death penalty in cases where law-enforcement officers are killed. Mr. Bush said: "Drug dealers need to understand a simple fact. You shoot a cop and you will be severely punished, fast. And if I had my way, I'd say with your life." A separate anticrime proposal recommends increasing the number of prisons and law-enforcement officers as well as broadening the use of the death penalty for co...