Scottsmen+(Pro+Death+Penalty)

 Death Penalty Notes

Jost, Kenneth. "Death Penalty Controversies." v__olume 15, issue 33__. 2005. CQ Researcher. April 22, 2009 .

1.) Critics and opponents of the death penalty are warning that capital trials and sentencing hearings are so riddled with flaws that they risk resulting in the execution of innocent persons. (Team Effort)

2.) DNA testing has exonerated 162 criminals from the death penalty, only finding 14 to be innocent. (CHT)

3.) Not one person has been proven innocent who has been executed in modern day. (CHT)

4.) There have only been 36 exonerations from the death penalty in the last nine years. (CHT)

5.) Exonerations don't necessarily mean that the guilty party was found innocent. They are usually only removed from technical issues. (CHT)

6.) Lately, opoponents to the death penalty have become less concerned with the outcome of the imnates trial, and more focused on litigating issues having no relevance to the guilt or innocence of the party in question. (CHT & CAR)

7.) The district attorney in Clastop County said " They're looking for the innocent defendant who was executed, They havent found one yet. I don't think they're going to find one." He spoke of how those executed are guilty and they look for innocent and check but tend to not find one. (CHT)

8.) Nearly 3 out of four Americans support the death penalty (CHT)

9.) Only 61% of people believe the death penalty is carried out fairly (CHT)

10.) Not all murders are death-penalty worthy; there are two degrees of murder (CHT)

11.) Only juries can sentence death not the judge alone (CHT)

12.) The most humane methods are used today preventing the failure to uphold the no cruel and unusual amendment (8th Amendment). (CHT)

13.) Anti-death penalty sentiment rose to a near majority during the 1950s and '60s, and the number of executions declined.(CAR)

14.) Support of the death penalty increased after the controversial 1972 Supreme Court decision to outlaw capital punishment.(CAR)

15.) Capital punishment morphs to fit public opinion(CHT)

16.) Thanks to abolitionist death penalty is reserved to first degree murderers(CAR)

17.) The power to sentence defendants to death was also transferred from judges to juries in the 19th century.(CHT)

18.) Death penalty opponents successfully campaigned against public executions and in favor of replacing the gallows with the supposedly more humane electric chair.(CHT)

19.) Support peaked in 1953 at 68%(CAR)

20.) Support dropped in the 1960s to 42%(CHT)

21.) Executions tend to drop when it is disapproved of.(CHT)

22.) Abolitionist claim the death penalty violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.(CAR)

23.) The campaign climaxed on June 29, 1972, with the Supreme Court's decision in //Furman v. Georgia//, which invalidated all existing death sentences and death penalty statutes(CAR)

24.) Constant challenges from abolitionist has complicated the hearing process(CHT)

25.) For its part, the Supreme Court rejected broad challenges to the death penalty, though it somewhat narrowed application of capital punishment and also established complex procedural rules for capital sentencing hearings. In one significant line of decisions,(CHT)

26.) In Illinois, students in a journalism course at Northwestern University helped uncover 13 cases of innocent defendants on death row, who were later exonerated.(CAR)

27.) The Innocent Protection Act guarantees the right to a DNA test. (CAR)

28.) The death penalty is often misconstrude as a punishment for a crime when it is intended to rid society of a worthless individual (CHT&KDM)

29.) The death penalty has evolved throught the ages from gallows to letheal injections(CHT&KDM)

30.) the audiance is wavering(CHT&KDM)

31.) the # of executions has dramioticly dacreased(CHT&KDM)

32.) all people on death row can appeal to courts.(CHT&KDM)

__death penalty Information__. 2009. april 22, 2009 .

1.) Sometimes, guilty parties are exonerated from the death penalty. Nathan Feilds, who killed two gang members was recently exonerated from the death penalty because the judge in his case was bribed. But how much does it cost to keep him in jail? (CAR)

2.) In Texas, three men were originally sentenced to death, but now the sentence is life without parole. It was changed because they found it "more palatable." (CAR)

3.) The **Virginia** Senate vetoed the proposed expansion of capital punishment. The bill wanted to extend capital punishment to murder accomplices who were not the actual killer and to those who kill on-duty fire marshals and auxiliary police officers. “Virginia, we execute enough people. We don’t need to expand it,” explained Kaine. (CAR)

4.) It costs more to keep an inmate in prison for life than to execute one inmate, but less inmates are executed than that are put in prison. (CAR)

5.) The four-million dollars save by the death-penalty will be put to solving cold cases. (CHT)

6.) Death rows is intended to give defendants time to prove their innocence to prevent the unessary loss of life. (CHT)

7.) In Texas rape of a child under 14 (second ofense) is punishable by death (CHT)

__Bryan, Paula Innmate Cost per day__. 2008. april 23, 2009 .

1.) It costs approximatly $20,000 to house just one inmate for a year in the state of florida. Not including those inmates who get medical treatments, it would cost twice as much if we did. (CAR)

__Carnical, Casey. The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?__ April 23, 2009. April 23, 2009.  1) The Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall be held to answer for a Capital crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, nor be deprived of life without the due process of law.' This clearly permits the death penalty to be imposed, and establishes beyond doubt that the death penalty is not one of the 'cruel and unusual punishments' prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. (KDM)

2) The death penalty as a deterrent to crime is not the issue. Capital punishment is a punishment for crime. As a punishment, the death penalty is 100% effective--every time it is used, the prisoner dies. (KDM)

3.) In reality, the murderer actually gets off easy when he is sentenced to death in the United States. There are five methods of execution used in the United States: lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squad. (KDM)

4.) If a person is lethally injected, he is first put to sleep with thiopental sodium, and then he is administered potassium chloride that will stop his heart. The criminal dies from anesthetic overdose and respiratory and cardiac arrest while he or she is unconscious. (KDM)

5.) As for the electric chair, there is an initial jolt of 2,300 volts (9.5 amps) which lasts for eight seconds, followed by a low-voltage jolt of 1,000 volts (4 amps) for 22 seconds and finally a jolt of 2,300 volts (9.5 amps) for eight seconds. The murderer is rendered unconscious immediately, or within the first eight seconds at most, as the initial high-voltage jolt kills the brain. The subsequent jolts stop the heart in case it is still beating. (KDM)

6.) Compare this to the heinous crimes of the murderer, where often the victim will go through excruciating pain for minutes, hours, or sometimes days. The minute amount of pain experienced by the murderer on death row does not even begin to compensate for the pain of the victims. (KDM)

7.) To argue that the death penalty is to be abolished because it is not fairly imposed is to admit that if it were imposed fairly it would be okay. This is not an argument against the death penalty but an argument to improve the justice system. Is the system unfair? Fix it. (KDM)

8.) Even those who are not released but still serve life terms murder again. Cassell further notes that, "At least five federal prison officers have been killed since December 1982, and the inmates in at least three of the incidents were already serving life sentences for murder." (KDM)

9.) Morality is defined as "the principles of right and wrong." As moral creatures, humans deserve praise for good deeds, and punishment for bad ones. Punishment may range from a slap on the wrist to death, but the punishment must fit the crime. This is known as // lex talionis //, or in common jargon, "an eye for an eye." (KDM)

10.) Abolitionists often insist that if we argue for // lex talion // justice we must be prepared to rape rapists, beat sadists, and burn down the houses of arsonists. Certainly, this is the case if we take the // lex talion // literally, and the criminals // do // deserve those punishments, but we needn't take it literally. (KDM)

"Pro-Death Penalty". April 26, 2009 .

1.) "All over the country, news stories bemoan and hype the countdown to execution number 1,000. But where are the stories regarding the ripple effects of the heinous crimes that these murderers were executed for committing? Who is counting the victims?" (CHT)

2.) Of the 1000 murders executed estimates put their victims at 1,895 (CHT)

3.) " With a yearly average of 15,000 murders, the fact that we are reaching 1,000 executions in only a little more than 30 years is proof that capital punishment has been reserved for the worst of the worst." (CHT)

4.) We now claim the death of one murders a tragety yet the murders victim are not even mentioned (CHT)

5.) The law recognizes the specific distinction between those legally innocent and those actually innocent, just as common sense dictates. Yes, there is a difference between the truly "I had no connection to the murder" cases and "I did it but I got off because of legal error" cases. So when we say 114 innocence people have been exonerated we need to ask were they really innocent (CHT)

6.)Some were released on Acquittal, which is a "not guilty" verdict, means that the state was unable to meet the necessary burden of proof, in establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It has nothing to do with establishing actual innocence. (CHT)

7.) Absolute pardon may have nothing to do with actual innocence. (CHT)

8.) Now accomplices are being freed when they are charged with the same crime as those who comitted the murder. (CHT)

9.) Only 17 people released were "actually" innocent (CHT)

10.) The rate of false claim of innocence by anti-death penalty people is 83% (CHT)

11.) "**The death penalty is a warning, just like a lighthouse throwing its beams out to sea. We hear about shipwrecks, but we do not hear about the ships the lighthouse guides safely on their way. We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the lighthouse down." - //poet Hyman Barshay//** (CHT)

12.) in some places those sentenced to life increased by 650% and for 52 million a year for care the US will further its current debt (CHT)

13.) Escape canoot happen when sentence to death but life... (CHT)

14.) There are loopholes in the law that allows those sentenced to life without parole to get parole (CHT)

15.) If the inmate can provide no contribution to society and will only cost money in jails why keep him alive (CHT)

Lowe, Wesley,. (2009). //Pro Death Penalty//. Retrieved 26 April 2009, from Website:http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html. 1.) People say that states with the death penalty have higher crime rates than those who do not have it. That is wrong because the states who do have capital punishment are compelled to have it due to their higher crime rates, not the other way around. (KDM)

2.) Abolitionists say criminals do not fear capital punishment when they do not take time to think about their actions. If this were true how would a police officer be able to arrest a criminal without killing him. Data Below see #3 (KDM)

3.) From 1960-1980 data of murders, and capital punishment. 1960, 56 executions, 9,140 murders in USA. By 1964 their were only 15 executions, and murders risen to 9,250. In 1969 their were 0 executions, and murder risen to 14,590. 0 executions held by 1975, murder rose to 20,150. By 1980 only 2 executions happened, while murder rose to 23,040. Between 1960-1980 murder rose from 9,250 to 23,040. A 131 percent increase. The murder rate--homicides per 100,000 person-- doubled from 5.1 to 10.2. From the data the murder rate grew as the number of executions shrank. (KDM)

4.)Quote of the death penalty from a researcher of Texas A&M University, "While some [death penalty] abolitionists try to face down the results of their disastrous experiment and still argue to the contrary, the...[data] concludes that a substantial deterrent effect has been observed...In six months, more Americans are murdered than have killed by execution in this entire century...Until we begin to fight crime in earnest [by using the death penalty], every person who dies at a criminal's hands is a victim of our inaction."--Karl Spence  (KDM)

5.)The data from #3 is compared to data from 1995-2000. The average executions per year is 71. A 21,000 percent increase over 1960-1980. Murder rate dropped from a high 10.2(per 100,000 person) to 5.7 in 1999-- a 40 percent reduction. The rate is at its lowest since 1966. (KDM)

6.)Out of the states Texas has the highest death penalty rate. According to Justice for All, the Texas murder rate in 1991 was 15.1(per100,000). By 1999, it had fallen to 6.1, a drop of 60%. The most murders committed in Texas is in Houston, Harris County, it dropped from 701 to 241, a 72% decrease. (KDM)

7.) Abolitionists also say that their are different ideas besides the death penalty. Ex. Parole. The problem with putting a murder away for life under parole is not good enough. The reason is that laws change, as well as parole boards, meaning the new people who come in forget the past of what has happened or did not know. (KDM)

8.) Abolitionists also believe that the death penalty is inhuman by the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. In article 3 it states that "Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person" They interpret the death penalty as a human rights violation since it deprives a person's right to live. If this were true we would have to abolish prisons because it deprives people of their liberty. Fines and taxes would also be gone for they would violate one's "security of person". The people who made the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights recognized the destinction between crime and punishment. (KDM)

9.) Article 5 states, "No one shall be subjected to cruel or degrading punishment". Abolitionists believe that this clearly states the death penalty is inhuman, and degrading punishment. At the time the Declaration was signed, the nations who signed it already held a death penalty, and continued to use it after the Declaration was signed. The nations who signed it clearly understood between murder and executions. (KDM)

10.) The idea of an extreme murderer prisoner for life does not benefit the family knowing that the man is still alive. What he had done to that family is something that the family cannot put behind so easily. Also the chance of escape from prison intensifies the idea of the murderer to go back to that family and terrorize them. (KDM)

11.) Some people believe that innocent people are executed. That could or could not be true. But what is true is the fact that everyone drives three-four tons of metal everyday, and are accounted to a death toll of 45,000 innocent people per year. That is clearly a difference of how many innocent people die by cars compared to the death penalty. (KDM)

12.) The idea of being able to harness the good that comes out of car, airplanes, ships, and ect. for the results of innocent lives lost is just the same as the death penalty. The death penalty is the least out of them all, because it is the most controlled, because a lot fewer people decided who is executed to who is not, compared to the millions of people who drive cars recklessly, or safely. However the death penalty is focused on with the most paranoia. (KDM)

13.) Quote from the syndicated columnist Charley Reese, "I favor a fair trial, one quick appeal and prompt execution. I don't think murderers ought to live much beyond 12 months from the day their victim is buried...[and] As for not being able to correct a mistake, so what? Virtually all accidental deaths are deaths by mistake. Why impose a standard of perfection only on the criminal justice system? There are no perfect human institutions. Our system is, more than any other, designed to protect the rights of the defendant. The chance of a truly innocent person being executed is exceedingly slim. But if it happens, it happens just as things happen to people every day." (KDM)

14.) Abolitionists believe that it takes more money to execute someone than have them life without parole. Upfront the death penalty is at least 2 mill. However the parole over time is increased to be 1-3.6 mill. (KDM)

15.) They also say that the Holy Bible says under the 6th commandment says that one shall not kill. They say that the death penalty is a form of killing. The tranlation of the text from Hebrew can also mean murder not killing. Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a person with malice and aforethought. (KDM)

16.) They also say that Jesus came and changed or abolished the old law and directly when he saved a prosititute from being stoned by saying "Let he among you who is without sin, cast the first stone." John 8:7. But Jesus told us that He did not come to abolish the death penalty, but to come and fulfill the Law, In Matthew 5:17-19 "Do not think that i came to destroy the Law of Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. for assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (KDM)

17.) On a final note, how can murder be taken seriously if the penalty isn't equally as serious? A crime, after all, is only as severe as the punishment that follows it.

18.) The guilt that is brought upon those who execute people influence what they do or how they feel.

__death penalty arguments__. 2009. 4/29/09 .

1.) Critics of capital punishment argue that it is inhumane and cruel punishment.(CAR)

2.) States with death penalty do not have lower crime rates than others, in 1993 the murder rate of states with the death penalty was 56% higher than in states without. (CAR)

3.) There's high public support for the death penalty because of a desire for harsher punishments for crime. (CAR)

4.) The Death Penalty is unethically utilized discriminatorily against minorities, the poor and uneducated (CAR)

5.) Capital Punishment is not economically conscious, costing more than it would to incarcerate someone for life. (CAR)

6.) Some critics believe that the funds used to execute a person could be used to create social programs that aim to divert crime in communities. (CAR)

7.) Supporters of the death penalty think that you should treat others how you want to be treated; you kill a man, you are killed. (CAR)

8.) Pro-Death Penalty supporters say the death penalty helps to shape societies moral condemnation of serious crimes. (CAR)

9.) In a utopia, there would be no crime; in the reality of society there will always be crime, but that does not mean that we should not punish those who commit crimes. (CAR)

10.) Without capital punishment crime is sustained, with it, theres a chance it can divert persons from ever committing it. (CAR)

__Debate Over Capital Punishment : A Pro Stance__. 2009. 4/29/09 <http://www.studyworld.com/moral_issues/capital_punishment/debate_over_capital_punishment.htm>.

1.) Those against the death penalty are blind to the victims of murder, they look at it from the standpoint of the criminal and how cruel it it for them. (CAR)

2.) Opposers of the death penalty view it as barbaric, but what about the actions of those killers? (CAR)

3.) "All grandeur, all power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears." Says Joseph de Maistre (CAR)

4.)Supporters see it as undermining a key advantage of the death penalty over life imprisonment: it saves tax-payers the huge cost of keeping murderers locked up. (CAR)

__Capital Punishment Laws__. 2005. 4/29/09 <http://law.jrank.org/pages/11803/Capital-Punishment.html>.

1.) There are twelve states that authorize the death penalty for non-homicide crimes. Of note is California, often known for its radical politics, which lists treason as a capital crime. Other common non-homicide capital offenses are kidnapping, hijacking, and other serious crimes that involve hostage-taking or placing a victim in extreme danger. (CAR)

2.) This shifting status often brought unbalanced—unjust—sentencing.(CAR)

3.) The Supreme Court has since handed down explicit guidelines defining the legal imposition of the death penalty, allowing states a new opportunity to legislate a legal death penalty statute that is less likely to be ruled unconstitutional in the future. (CAR)

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(CHT)- Thompson (KDM)- McLuckie (CAR)- Rutherford