Against Capital Punishment

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Evans was being subject to cruel and unusual punishment. The request was denied.
At 8:40 p.m. the third charge of electricity was passed through Mr. Evans body. At 8:44 p.m. he was pronounced dead. The execution took 14 minutes. Afterward officials were embarrassed by what one observer called the �barbaric ritual.� The electric chair is supposed to be a very humane way of administering death, if there is one� (Zimring, & Hawkins, 1986, p.1).
Every Western Industrial nation has stopped executing criminals, except the United States. Most Western nations have executed criminals in this century, and many were executed after World War II. Then executions suddenly decreased (Clay, 1990, p.9). This is partly because the people in many European countries might have been tired of killing from the war. In most cases the countries and states that stopped capital punishment followed with its formal abolition shortly after (Clay, 1990, p.10). One reason that the United States did not end capital ...

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(Robinson, 1999, October 7). Killing is not the answer (Bender& Leone, 1987 p. 63). Recently some states have been implementing life without parole as an alternative to death. This has proven just a successful as the death penalty for punishment. It prevents criminals from returning to society, and is less expensive than capital punishment (Vila & Morris, 1997, p.255). Another study shows that over 80% of those serving life sentences will never commit another crime, and well over 80% will never again commit a capital offense (Bedau, 1999, November 10). These statistics clearly show that other forms of punishment are successful in the deterrence of crime and capital punishment is not ...

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