Capital punishment
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In contemporary society there are a handful of issues that remain highly controversial, including abortion, gun control, and capital punishment. When someone is sentenced to the death penalty and executed, the official cause of death on the death certificate is listed as homicide. While many oppose state-sanctioned homicide, many others argue that certain kinds of crimes merit capital punishment as the only means of exacting justice for victims and protecting society. The use of capital punishment has grown since the 1960s. As Price reports, “The number of prisoners on death row is at its highest since 1965” (15A). However, the death penalty has become even more controversial in recent years because of alleged racial discrimination in its use. The most important fact referred to in the debate over capital punishment is that an unusually large percentage of individuals sentenced to die in this manner are poor, male and black while very few are white or wealthy. Further, the arbitrary use of the death penalty appears to be based on a higher valuation of white life than black life. For these reasons, a proposal to resolve the present injustices in the use of the death penalty will be offered in the conclusion. The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution bars cruel and unusual punishment. Many argue that the death penalty violates this constitutional right, particularly because the vast majority of a
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es more likely to get the death penalty. In social science, you don’t find many things that huge. The report found that the two countries with the highest death sentencing rates were also the two countries with the highest rates of capital homicides involving white victims and black killers” (Liptak 2).
In 1994, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun argued that two decades after the High Court declared the death penalty should be applied fairly and with consistency, the death penalty remained fraught with arbitrariness. In study after study it is reported that racial minorities are being given the death penalty in far greater proportions than their numbers in society or their numbers in the penal system. The death penalty continues to be used against the poor, minorities and those with inadequate legal representation. Some state officials are taking matters into their own hands in order to put an end to what they find an arbitrary, unjust punishment that unfairly dooms the poor and minorities. In Illinois, Governor George Ryan recently commuted the sentences of all 167 inmates in the state condemned to death. Even though the now former governor was a longtime advocate of the death penalty, recent exposure of its unjust ap
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Some common words found in the essay are:
African Americans, Discrimination INTRODUCTION, Mike Mears, Scott Baldauf, Brendan Miniter, Amendment Constitution, Harry Blackmun, George Ryan, death penalty, Baltimore County, A7 Ryan, capital punishment, death row, sentenced death, application death penalty, racial discrimination, application death, national standards, cruel unusual, applied fairly, race victim, death penalty racially, lack national standards, racial discrimination application, national standards applying,
Approximate Word count = 1778
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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