Capital Punishment Views

From the outset, it appears that capital punishment, although used often, has not done much in the way of promoting regard for human life. From 1930 to 1967, 3,859 people were executed under the rubric of capital punishment in the United States.2 Since 1967, very few have met the same fate  38 states have adopted new sentencing and

1 Steven Goldberg, "On Capital Punishment," Ethics 85 (1974): 6774.

2 Thomas Draper, ed., Capital Punishment, (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1985), 6.

punishment standards, and the debate continues to be a national issue. The argument runs deep into the strains of society: how should a democratic society punish those individuals who have chosen to com

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dstill. The 1970s became a vitally important decade in the issue of capital punishment, and focused on a challenge to the Constitution itself. The debate centered on the Eighth Amendment that banned "cruel and unusual punishment" and its relationship to capital punishment in general.12 Thus, the major issues of the 1970s surrounded the manner in which the death penalty was carried out  not necessarily on the act itself. The 1980s, with its return to extreme conservative values and attitudes, took a more singular view of the issue. For instance, in Ronald Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address, he stated, "In keeping with the will of the overwhelming majority of Americans, the death penalty must be imposed when necessary."13 He based this on research from MediaGeneral poll takers and a poll which gave ____________________ 11 Lawrence Kohlberg and Donald Effenbein, "Moral Judgments about Capital Punishment: A DevelopmentalPsychological View," in Hugo Adam Bedau and Chester M. Pierce, eds., Capital Punishment in the United States, (New York: AMS Press, 1976), 251. 12 Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins, Capital Punishment and the American Agenda, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 501. 13 Dra
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Approximate Word count = 2287
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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