Capital Punishment"s Deterrent Affect On Homicide Rates by Ronald Watson J.D.ME.d.

History Of Capital Punishment

This article is an excerpt from a book that is in progress that is being written by Ronald Watson-Bolden titled "Capital Punishment Is Not A Deterrent "

Capital punishment is defined as the legal infliction of the death penalty. Under modern law,

the death penalty is corporal punishment in its most severe form. It is irrevocable; it ends the existence of criminals who have committed capital offenses 1.

The earliest historical records contain written evidence of capital punishment. One of them was the Babylonian Hammurabi Code (ca.1700 B.C.) decreed the death penalty for crimes as minor as the fraudulent sale of beer. Many crimes that would seem trivial would be punishable by death. Egyptians were executed for revealing sacred burial places. Persians were put to death for accidentally sitting on the King's throne. A wife could be executed for stealing the keys to her husband's wine cellar according to Roman Republic law. Greek law ordered the execution of those who committed sacrilege.2 The Athenian leader Draconian seventh century B.C. formulated a harsh criminal code that prescribed the death sentence for most offenses, giving the rise to the word draconian. The Torah, the law of the Hebrews, sentenced offenders to death for over a dozen different offenses.3 The bible called for the death penalty for more than thirty different crimes, among which was the crucifix of Jesus Christ under the laws of the Roman Empire.

The methods of execution have changed over the ages. The previous methods of inflicting the death penalty would be regarded today as barbaric and forbidden by law. Some of these methods included crucifixion, boiling in oil, drawing and quartering, impalement, and burning alive. Some other methods included beheading, burning alive, crushing, tearing, stoning, and drowning.4 the In the United States, the death penalty is currently authorized in one of five ways; electrocution, the gas chamber, or lethal injection.

Unlike previous methods of executing criminals, today's methods are meant to punish and not to torture which would be illegal under the US Constitution.

In 1972 when Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court struck down the national capital punishment laws because it was imposed in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. This ruling was met with opposition from Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. Consequently, many states moved quickly to amend their capital punishment laws to conform to "Furman".4

Capital Punishment impacts one of the basic rights we have as human beings, the right to life. I have been a strong opponent of the abolishment of the death penalty for years. Studies have shown it is not a deterrent. Additionally, it is far more costly than giving a criminal life in prison. Finally, we have had several instances where lethal injections of the death penalty violate a criminal's Constitutional rights from being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

1. History Of The Death Penalty

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3.. National Criminal Justice Reference Service

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