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Capital Punishment Essay: Death Penalty In The United States

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Capital Punishment Essay: Death Penalty In The United States
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Capital Punishment

March 5, 2005

The debate about the right and wrong of capital punishment has gone on for many years. The article that is the basis for this paper, skims the surface of this debate. Convicted Killer Michael Ross is not opposed to his sentence. It is opponents to the death penalty that are behind all of the protests. I have to agree with the protestors on this one, capital punishment is nothing more than state mandated murder, whether the convicted person agrees with it or not.
What is Capital Punishment?
In a simple but clear definition, according to the Superior Court of California (Superior Court, 2004), capital punishment …show more content…
The executed person was Captain George Kendall, who was executed for being a spy. Britain had a great influence on bringing the death penalty to America with the colonists. Each of the colonies had their own version of death penalty laws (Introduction to the death penalty, 2005).
In 1767 the first attempt at to abolish the death penalty took place in America with an essay from Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment. This essay influenced Thomas Jefferson to introduce a bill to revise Virginia’s death penalty laws to allow the death penalty only for cases of treason or murder. The bill was defeated by one vote. During the 1800’s, Rhode Island and Wisconsin abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Michigan abolished the death penalty for all crimes except treason (Introduction to the death penalty, 2005).
During the early and mid 20th century, many states were back and forth between abolishing and reinstating the death penalty. In 1924, the state of Nevada introduced the use of cyanide gas as a more humane way to execute its inmates. The first attempt at this was to pipe the cyanide gas into the inmates cell while he slept. This failed so they went on to build the first gas chamber (Introduction to the death penalty, …show more content…
Michael Ross was convicted of killing eight people; six of them were in the state of Connecticut. Michael Ross decided to forgo the appeal process, fired the public defenders and hired a private attorney, T.R. Paulding, to help speed up his execution. Ross’s execution has been delayed again because Judge Robert Chatigny has requested that Ross undergo a competency hearing. Ross agreed to the competency hearing because the judge made threats of revoking Paulding’s law license (Yahoo news-Hunger strike, 2005).
Ethical Theories related to Capital Punishment
Rule Utilitarianism states that everyone should always follow the rule that will bring about the greatest good for all concerned. Act Utilitarianism states that everyone should perform the act that will bring the greatest good for everyone affected by the act. Ross’s Prima Facie Duties maintained that all human beings must obey these duties (fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement, and nonmaleficence) before other considerations enter the picture unless serious circumstances tell us to do
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