Broussard 1

Ty Broussard

Professor Moore

Composition 1

9 October 2019

The United States v. The Death Penalty

Americans citizens in every corner of the country have to live everyday with the fear of

being killed by the government The first time anyone was put to death by the government was

around the 18th century, written in the code enforced by Hammurabi and his army. In a time

where wars are fought by hand, methods such as drowning and burning made the punishment of

death gruesome. Today the Death penalty is still being used, but in the united states they use

lethal injection. Lethal injection is the process of injecting a specific drug into ones blood stream,

for the soul purpose to cause death. The death penalty has become a large topic for discusion for

law makers because of the amount of arguments that the act is unconstitional, yet needed in

todays world.

The use of lethal injection has been in the United States since 1976, first used in georgia

this set a separating tone across the country. While the death penalty is still federally legal, it is

only used in 60% of the country. Lethal injection is a method of capital punishment by a

combination of medications, typically, a sedative, a paralytic agent, an analgesic agent, and a

fatal dose of potassium(farlex Medical Dictionary). This is only given to individuals accused of

the worst possible crime. Murder can affect an entire family, not only does someone lose their

life but the persons family loses a loved one. In pro-death penalty states, the only legal

punishment for murder is death by lethal injection, or life in prison without the possiblity of

parole. In 1994 the national center of health statistics stated that 1 in out of 400 people lost their
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lives due to being murdered(Pojman 3). This is a procedure set in place to set a tone to criminals.

This inforces the law on murder, hopefully deturing individuals from commiting the crime. It

also is set in place to keep our streets safer, for law abiding citizens. Keeping murderers away

from the community sometimes isn’t enough, it's very common for one to be sentenced to death

by lethal injection.

For the past four decades, the eighth amendment has been used against the Supreme

Court to argue that the death penalty is cruel and unconstitutional. For years citizens have

bonded together to abolish the death penalty, to no completion. “Although five former and two

current Supreme Court Justices—Arthur Goldberg, William Brennan, Thur- good Marshall,

Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg—have made a

powerful case for why the death penalty is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual, their argument

has never commanded a majority”(Barry 1551). In 2015, the Supreme Court was on track to

announce the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment in the case of Glossip v. Gross; it

was a 5-4 vote in favor of keeping Oklahoma’s lethal injection law.

Law officials are constantly questioned on whether the Death penalty is unconstitutional,

being a direct violation of the 8th amendment. This amendment states that no one can be given

cruel and/or unusual punishment. This amendment was set to forever insure Americans that their

safety is insured. The courts find it just to let their laws bypass the constitution, by enforcing the

punishment of death. Keeping the most violent criminals in jail will work in some cases, but

might not work in others. The death penalty gives states the right to sentence the accused to

death, by lethal injection.

Barry, Kevin M. “The Death Penalty and the Fundamental Right to Life.” Boston College Law

Review, vol. 60, no. 6, 1545–1604.EBSCOhost,

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search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=137618961&site=eds-

live&scope=site. (Accessed 25 October 2019).

McInnes, Karen. “States and Capital Punishment.” States and Capital Punishment, Karen

Mclnnes, www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/death-penalty.aspx.

(Accessed 25 October 2019).

Pojman, Louis P., and Jeffrey H. Reiman. The Death Penalty: For and Against. Rowman

& Littlefield Publishers, 1998. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=18588&site=ehost-live.

(Accessed 25 October 2019).