Firstly, let me make it noted that these are simply notes and unconnected facts that i have gathered to support my argument that CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS WRONG AND IMMORAL! With that, maybe someday soon i'll take these facts and put them into a coherent paper. wanna talk, email me.
--->Found some information about the death penalty that we could use to refute capital punishment in Virginia. Along with the info are the sources where I found the info. I’m thinking that our stand on this (pro-abolishment) would best be built up if we throw out examples of where the death penalty has done wrong (i.e. the execution of innocent people, the mentally retarded and people who were charged with capital offenses as juveniles.) I’m thinking that if we focus on the negative effects we can use it to persuade the class and Mr. J that capital punishment should be abolished. We can use some of the examples of when the death penalty has been wrongly used, like what I said earlier. We can also use the fact that it costs more to put someone to death than to sentence them to life imprisonment. I’m also thinking that we could use some of the house and senate bills to strengthen our cause. They advocate that the Virginian legislature IS taking steps to get rid of the death penalty or at least curb some of the downsides of it, like sending mentally retarded persons to death or abolishing the 21-day period where new evidence can be introduced (like DNA or other evidence that can prove the person’s innocence) The prevention of mentally retarded person one has passed both the house (HB 957) and senate (SB 497) and is pending the decision of the court case. (I’m going to find out what that court case is) anyways, this is really all I have so far. Argh! The whole issue surrounding the death penalty is political too as well as a question concerning religion and morals. Both parties support it but that’s as far as they go. So really to keep their jobs, politicians go with whatever they feel is the majority of support of the public. I found that the real people that are making changes in legislation are lobbyist groups like the ACLU and FDP and Amnesty intn. and other anti-deathpenalty groups. --->Every western democracy except the USA has abolished the death penalty. ------>All international human rights treaties prohibit the imposition of the death penalty on anyone under 18 years of age at the time of the crime. At the end of 1997, there were 25 men on death row in Texas who were sentenced at the age of 17. --->Innocent people are executed. ------>In a 1987 study covering a period between 1900 to 1985, it was found that 350 people were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death; 23 of these people were executed. {Radelet, Bedau, and Putnam 'In Spite of innocence' 1992} --->The death penalty costs more than life imprisonment. ------>A 1992 Dallas Morning News study found that the cost to Texas taxpayers of a capital trial and all subsequent appeals is an average of $2.3 million per case. This Figure does not include the cost of the federal appeals process where 50 % to 70% of the death sentences are overturned. (By comparison, the cost of housing an inmate in a single cell maximum security unit for life is approximately $750,000. --->A New York study estimated the cost of an execution at three times that of life imprisonment In Florida, each execution costs the state $3.2million, compared to $600,000 for life imprisonment. --->Congressional Laws and Bills: ------>HB 957: Prohibits the imposition of the death penalty upon a mentally retarded defendant, but this prohibition does not prevent a defendant from being charged with or tried for capital offense, convicted for a Class 1 felony, or prevent the court from sentencing the defendant to imprisonment for life. **UPDATE!!! HB 957 is in House Committee, and will not be voted on in the House until the Supreme Court issues a decision in Atkins v. Virginia. ****UPDATE!!! The Supreme Court has ruled in support of HB 957 and a supsequent Senate Bill has been approved. The basic law now prohibits the imposition of the death penalty upon a mentally retarded defendent. ------>HB 224: Abolishes the death penalty for Class 1 felonies committee on or after 7/1/2002, and would mandate punishment upon conviction as life without the possibility of parole. ------>SB 497: Prohibit the imposition of the death penalty on mentally retarded persons. **UPDATE!!! SB 497 passed the Senate, and will not be voted on in the House until the Supreme Court issues a decision in Atkins v. Virginia. ****UPDATE!!! The Supreme Court has ruled in support of SB 497 and a supsequent House Bill has been approved. The basic law now prohibits the imposition of the upon a mentally retarded defendent. --->ACLU's opinion: ------>If the death penalty proponents really care so much about these relatives, I do not understand why the funding for psycological support for them is so embarassing low or missing. ------>How about the relatives of the person being executed? Why doesn't anybody care about them? Is it civilized to regard them as outcasts too? In Virginia: --->In death penalty verdicts, following sentencing, Virginia prisoners are allowed 21 days to present exculpatory evidence -- the type of proof that could show they were innocent. The rule is the most restrictive in the country. --->Too many governments believe that they can solve urgent social or political problems by executing a few or even hundreds of their prisoners. Too many citizens in too many countries are still unaware that the death penalty offers society not further protection but further brutalization. --->Often murders are committed in moments when emotion overcomes reason or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Some people who commit violent crime are highly unstable or mentally ill -- the execution of Larry Robison, diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, in the USA on 21 January 2000 is just one such example. --->Execution removes the possibility of compensation for judicial error or rehabilitation of the offender. --->Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, over half the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. --->Twenty-two U.S. States allow for the execution of people who were 16 or 17 years of age at the time of the crime. .... In Virginia the age is set at 16 I will provide a more coherent, argumentative essay against the death penalty in subsequent months. |