Dead Man Walking
Should Capital Punishment still be enforced?
By Katherine Perez
Although I can"t really say my opinion on the matter, given the fact that I have never been in a situation to decide if I thought someone should be given the death penalty or not, I have seen many cases publicized on t.v that I thought that the verdict was fitting, as in the Boston bombing case. But there have been others where I strongly disagreed that the death penalty was implemented, as in the West Memphis 3 case. Any which way you look at it, here are a few facts and problems with this highly debated subject.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in court.
During the trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to the death penalty.
West Memphis Three
Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Charles Baldwin were convicted of killing 3 young boys in 1994. Echols was sentenced to death for the crimes. All three have since been released on Alford Plea and time served.
Death Bed
Beds usually used in lethal injections.
The Facts.
A lot of the skepticism with capital punishment has to do with persistent problems of the administration of the death penalty: botched executions and a lengthy appeals process that fails to identify wrongful convictions for decades. Also, the falling crime rate, showing that support for the death penalty has closely tracked the national murder rate throughout the 20th century has given way to believing that it is not needed. The states that do not use the death penalty are:
- Alaska
- Connecticut
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Iowa
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Nebraska
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Dakota
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
The United States is one of only four industrialized democracies that still practice capital punishment.