Issues of Capital Punishment and the Death Penalty

Twenty-six years ago, on July 2, 1976, the U.S. arrogant Court voted 7-2 in Gregg v. Georgia to reinstate the devastation penalty after a brief official break. inherent in the Gregg decision was the upbeat belief that the many problems place by a introductory Supreme Court decision, Furman v. Georgia, could be holded. In 1972, the Furman Court had afflicted down hundreds of state laws that the justices deemed illogical. further the majority in Gregg argued that accusative standards would minimize impulsive decisions of the jurors and constrict discrimination.\n\nA quarter-century and more(prenominal) than 700 executions later, the owork force of Gregg seems ridiculously naive. Greggs ambition was to prune sentencing and ensure that finis sentences would be applied more equitably and only to the most noble offenders. It hasnt worked out that way. Today in the United States, more than 3,700 men and women await execution on finish row. The overwhelming take of those p ut to death leave alone be poor, members of a minority, uneducated, or of questionable sanity, and they will fill been represented by roughly of the worst lawyers available. Clearly, it was absurd to copy that the state legislatures that had crafted the unconstitutional laws criticized by the Furman decision would suddenly fix them. The death penalty should be abolished if it can not be administered fairly and impartially.\n\nObvious racial discrimination in the ecesis of the death penalty be routine. Nearly 90 percent of the federal inmates on death row are minorities. Also, more than 76 percent of the cases, in which federal prosecutors had sought the death penalty during the previous phoebe bird years, involved a suspect who belonged to a minority group. In the same study, U.S. attorneys were nearly in two ways as likely to inspire death for an African-American suspect than a Caucasian suspect (Clay 118-122).\n\nUnder the beliefs establish by Gregg, you might conclude t hat this would be unconstitutional. You would be wrong. In the Gregg decision, the Supreme Court said that a constitutional violation was established if a plaintiff demo a pattern of whimsical and capricious sentencing. Since then, however, the Court appears to scram abandoned this logic. In 1987, for example, it govern that racial disparities are an required part of our criminal justice formation. (Jackson 21-23).\n\nGrowing numbers of Americans throw away begun to question the rationality of the system that executes people....If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website:

Need assistance with such assignment as write my paper? Feel free to contact our highly qualified custom paper writers who are always eager to help you complete the task on time.