Death Penalty
Abstract Today there is a big controversy over capital punishment, the death penalty, whether or not it works or if it is morally right. ... People who favor the death penalty say that the criminal deserves it and is the only means way for justice to be served. But those against the death penalty say that it is immoral: that no person should be sentenced to death and it has no place in a civilized society since the death penalty cannot be racially prejudiced. By legalizing the death penalty in the state of Hawaii, it would drastically jeopardize our economic related issues to out living conditions. Therefore, keeping the death penalty out of our state is a positive economic expense. Death Penalty: Against the Odds Every society has values that guide behavior. ... The Death Penalty has peen a source of punishment as far back as this country’s history. ... Reviewing the history, these facts are available: more minorities received the death penalty, the south carried out more executions, and most executions were carried out on males. By 1960, all but ten states had the death penalty as a law of punishment. By 1976 states, which had laws that for specific crimes carried a mandatory death sentence, were challenged. ... In 1977, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that apply the death sentence in a rape case was unconstitutional due to being a disproportionate punishment for the crime. The most recent state to enact a death penalty law was New York in 1995. ... Alaska, eleven other states – Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin – and the District of Columbia do not have a death penalty. ... Death sentences have been carried out in the forms of hangings, firing squads, the electric chair, and the most resent lethal injection. ... Polls have shown that in the United States a majority of the people support the death penalty for crimes that show no regard for human life. Many Presidents including the last several backed the death penalty. As of 1998, 98 countries had the death penalty. ... (Anderson, 1998) Unfortunately, the United States model of the death penalty is that death row has a long wait for the sentence to be carried out with numerous appeals before court systems. Believing that perpetrators should pay for their crimes, I still must acknowledge that by legalizing the death penalty in the state of Hawaii it would have devastating affects on the economic related issues to the state. This state already has budget problems and in order to keep more burdens off the state the death penalty should not be legalized. It is not a matter of do you agree with the death penalty, which is the most frequent discussion on this issue, but the fact that it would not help the state’s economy.