The death penalty - legal cruelty (ePub)

Pre-University Paper from the year 2000 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, grade: 14 Punkte, St.-Irmengard-Gymnasium, course: LK Englisch, language: English, abstract: People have been humiliated, mutilated and killed -daily were atrocities in the name of the law commited. Reigns of terror invented methods, which brought the inhuman aspect in man to light. The victims suffered from unbelieveable pains. And still today there exist methods, which mean torture and pain for the offenders as well as for the victims - even in the USA. The history of capital punishment in the territory which is now known as the USA starts in the 17th Century, when the American colonies imposed the death sentence not only for 14 offenses as England prescribed it, but also for fewer crimes. The first known execution was of Daniel Frank. He was put to death in 1622 in the Colony of Virginia for the crime of theft.

In the 19th century politics and advances of technology influenced the use of the death penalty a lot. On August, 6, 1890 murderer William Kemmler was the first person, who has been executed in the electric chair. After a short-lived abolition movement which led to the repeat of numerous state death penalty statutes in 1900, Kansas was the first state who abolished capital punishment in 1907. Eight more states followed suit over the next 10 years. Then two sensational murder cases restarted the debate over the death penalty in the 1920s. As a result of this a time of death penalty support followed. For example two Italian immigrants were electrocuted in Massachusetts for two murders. Finally the peak of the U.S. executions was reached in the 1930s, averaging 167 a year.

The decline of executions in the 1960s was caused by growing doubts about the death penalty. That means that after Luis Jose Monge who died in the gas chamber at Colorado State Penitentiary, an unofficial moratorium on executions began.

The 1970s was an eventful decade for capital punishment. It first saw the death penalty canceled and then reinstated.