Death Penalty Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Death Penalty - Research Paper Example However, in mid 18th Century, social critics in Europe began to highlight the value of the human being and to condemn Government practices they deemed unjust, including Capital Punishment. Capital Punishment has been used as castigation for many crimes since ancient times. The Bible recommends death for many heinous crimes such as witchcraft, kidnapping and murder. But in 1500, only some major criminal acts were sentenced to death in England. These offenses included larceny, rape, burglary, murder, arson, and treason. In 1723, the Waltham Black Acts was passed in the Parliament in which many new crimes were ratified and this augmented the number of people given the death penalty every year. Following the 100 years from then, which is 1740 to 1839 a total number of Eight thousand Seven hundred and Fifty three people were put to death in Wales and England. The highest number of people that were put to death was Three hundred and seven in 1785 because they weren’t able to run away because of the ongoing American War of Independence. Due to this high number of death hangings, in 1800 the population reduced to only 9 million. In 1750s the reforms for death penalty begin to integrate in Europe and were under the governance of Cesare Beccaria (an Italian jurist), Voltaire (a French Philospher) and law reformers from England such as Samuel Romilly and Jeremy Bentham. These opponents of Capital punishment stood by the argument that death penalty was atrocious, terrible, appalling and usually given wrongly. They started their campaign with Quaker leaders and other law reformers and believed that life imprisonment was a more sensible option. By 1850s, these reform movements began to take physical existence. In 1853 Venezuela was the very first nation to condemn death sentence and then in 1867, Portugal followed the lead. In 1847, Michigan was the first state of United States to abolish death penalty for murder. In today’s society, Capital Punishment is abolished in most of the Latin America and Western Europe. However, United States, along with Japan, china and many Middle Eastern and Asian countries giv e death penalty for certain offenses and oblige it at various frequencies. Challengers of Capital Punishment compete that it is dreadful and horrifying. Those who oppose the death penalty see it as a human rights issue involving the true limits of governmental power. These people argue that life is a gift bestowed to us by God and no one has the right to take away other person’s life for acts such as robbery or burglary. But should death penalty be given for murder and shocking crimes still remains a question. Further Capital Punishment can be a wrong decision for most individuals because there is always a probability of error. It might happen that a person who is given death penalty is innocent and some other person was responsible for that dreadful deed. The actual administration of our society can be corrupted as well. Capital Punishment is imposed mostly on the indignant and the minorities. There is also a possibility of weakness of argument from the side of preclusion; t he argument that the threat of Capital Punishment lessens violent crime is open to doubts and is difficult to prove as well; and is also morally suspected. Another dispute over Capital Punishment is that we are too unskilled to carry it out. Sometimes a person keeps waiting for months or even years to be finally put to death. The delays, appeals, technicalities and retrials that keep a person destined to death waiting for implementation of the law enacted keep him or her bored and tired of life. According to World News, dated