Death Penalty
... executions in the US is rather limited compared to that of other countries. In China at least 1,060 people were executed, although the true number was believed to be much higher. At least 113 executions were carried out in Iran, but in the United States only 65 people were killed in 2003 (Amnesty International). In the US certain cases have been held on the use of the death penalty. Such as, the Timothy McVeigh who was accused of the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh was convicted of murder and conspiracy in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and sentenced to death. The blast killed 168 people and injured hundreds more (Kenworty). Appeals were made in McVeigh’s defense to try and get his punishment to be less severe and to fight his case. McVeigh and his attorneys angrily parted ways in August, forcing the court to appoint him a new attorney for the appeals process. McVeigh had appealed on grounds that the testimony produced a verdict and sentence based on emotion rather than reason, but the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his arguments. The three-judge panel also rejected eight other avenues of appeal, including pretrial publicity, juror misconduct and barred testimony alleging that others may have carried out the worst-ever bombing on American soil (Kenworthy). In conclusion to this case, McVeigh was sentenced to death for his actions. Another supreme court case was Gregg v. Georgia. Gregg was charged with committing armed robbery and murder on the basis of evidence that he had killed and robbed two men. At the trial stage of Georgia's bifurcated procedure, the jury found petitioner guilty of two counts of armed robbery and two counts of murder. At the penalty stage, the judge instructed the jury that it could recommend either a death sentence or a life prison sentence on each count; that it was free to consider mitigating or aggravating circumstances, if any, as presented by the parties; and that it would not be authorized to consider imposing the death sentence unless it first found beyond a reasonable doubt (1) that the murder was committed while the offender was engaged in the commission of other capital felonies, viz., the armed robberies of the victims; (2) that he committed the murder for the purpose of receiving the victims' money and automobile; or (3) that the murder was "outrageously and wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman" in that it "involved the depravity of [the] mind of the defendant." The jury found the first and second of these aggravatin...