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Capital Punishment

The U.S. Supreme Court's restoration of the death penalty in 1976 sparked a continuing national debate on whether capital punishment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Many will agree that capital punishment, the execution of criminals by state, deters murder with just retribution. Capital punishment, which is favored by the overwhelming majority of United States citizens, is an expression of the will of the majority in a democratic society. The death penalty discourages murder by putting the fear of death into criminals. Capital punishment is therefore not a cruel and unusual punishment but a symbol of public authority. Then in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court seemingly outlawed the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia. In 1976, the Court reversed itself in Gregg v. Georgia, on the grounds that legislative responses to Furman had indicated a strong public support for death sentences in murder cases. This was evidenced by the fact that after Furman, 28 states had written new capital statutes, and by 1976, that number had grown to 35, with more than 460 persons sentenced to death.
In any society, "punishment is rooted in the idea of conduct that is considered improper by the community as a whole or those to whom its power is delegated" (Harding & Ireland 94). The punishment is, therefore, a reflection of how the community conceives of the crime and how it perceives its own responsibility to respond, as a community, to that crime. The death penalty is the lawful killing of a human being after a trial by peers. So by definition the death penalty is not murder, but justice. For society to function in a meaningful way and its citizenry to feel safe and secure, individuals must be confident that criminals will be apprehended and dealt with in a fashion proportionate to their crimes.
To understand the death penalty and everything it deals with, one must understand the background of it. There are two very important Supreme Court cases dealing with capital...