Texas Death Penalty

The Effectiveness of the Death Penalty in Texas The death penalty is one of the most controversial topics in America today due to its turbulent nature. Capital punishment is highly debated and it encompasses a plethora of ethical, religious, political, and legal issues. Texas is one of the thirty-eight states in the nation that practices this form of punishment. (Naidoff, Caitlin)

The death penalty is a controversial issue that has been debated in the United States for a long period of time. In our own state of Texas, executing convicted criminals has become second nature. This is due to the fact that Texas has executed more people than any other state in the United States since 1976. So why does Texas lead the United States in executions? There are many reasons and factors that has led to this point. It is important to know the reasons to have a better understanding of capital punishment in Texas. Three of the reasons include a weak public defender system, desires of district attorneys and judges, and the governors limited power to grant clemency.

In conclusion the idea that the death penalty should be abolished can be supported by many reasons that include extensive evidence. With the death penalty still established we are putting innocent people's lives at risk, spending millions, and continue with racial segregation. The idea that someone's opinion in court can decide the fate of another person is

The death penalty should continue to be legal because it is inexpensive. The death penalty makes for a good way for people to get the justice they deserve. In Texas the death penalty being legal makes sure that the people that commit heinous crimes pay. Texas does not suffer from political doubt, and certain cases are a no other answer that the death penalty. It cost the Texas Department of Criminal Justice $83 to execute a prisoner by lethal injection alone. The Attorney General alone donates 15% of his budget, to death penalty cases. Maintaining each death row prisoner costs taxpayers $90,000 per year. It cost more than $31,000 to keep someone in prison for a year. The most recent report is that only fifteen states have gotten rid of it all together. These states being Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The death penalty is a precedent set centuries ago as a method of punishment for severe crimes. In 1923, the state of Texas declared that those sentenced to death were to suffer through the electric chair by the hands of the state, instead of being hanged by the hands of the counties (TX Executions). Later on, Texas would adopt the lethal injection method. Many see the death penalty as an inhumane violation of the basic rights defined in the Bill of Rights. On the other hand, others may argue that it is unpractical to abolish the death penalty due to the voidance of justice. These arguments can be supported and solidified by the cases of Andre Thomas and Anthony Graves.

According to Hinman (5), just punishment is the one that happens to those who are proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. This is important because capital punishment is irreversible and hence only the guilty should be executed. However, there are many cases of innocent people who have been sentenced to death only to have their appeals granted at the last minute, or worse, denied and executed. It is on these grounds that Bedau (2007) argues against the death penalty because it is unjust and unfair. About unfairness, he goes on to add that racial and economic discrimination are also a factor to consider when meting out capital punishment.

Annotated Bibliography Draft Student name : Haider Zafaryab Student number: 2360526 Thesis Statement : Capital Punishment is a very controversial topic around the globe. I believe that it does more harm than good and breeds violence in society. Source 1: Radelet, M. L., & Akers, R. L. (1996).

The biggest disparity that was found was when a death penalty case involved a white victim and a black defendant. After reviewing the death penalty cases, there was an indication that “twenty-two percent of cases received the death penalty when a black defendant and white victim were involved….compared to only three percent when there was a black victim and white defendant involved.” The study broke this data down further and looked at the percentages of when a prosecutor seeks the death penalty. The study found that prosecutors sought the death penalty in “seventy percent of cases that involved white victims and black defendants and only nineteen percent when the roles were reversed.”

Forty years have gone by and I think it’s finally time we acknowledge the inconvenient truth; Capital punishment is not a fair means of punishment and disproportionately affects minorities. In the landmark Supreme Court case McCleskey v. Kemp, a study conducted by David Baldus, a late Iowa Law Professor, concluded that black defendants indicted for murder were convicted nearly twice as much as white defendants and black defendants who killed white people received the death penalty four times more often than black defendants who killed other black people. This argument was a highlight of the case, but did not stop the Supreme Court from ignoring the statistics regarding racial bias in capital punishment cases. A vote of 5-4 ruled that tendencies

This should be shocking to us because of the “fairness” of our judicial system. It would be interesting to find how many of those black defendants' trials would be found innocent if they had a retrial with an unbiased jury like we all should have the right to. Since 1973, over 140 “lucky” death row inmates were released from death row, how many more are innocent are still on today? Our judicial system should not rely on “luck” alone. Our judicial system isn't perfect, nor will it ever be, because we in ourselves aren't perfect, so we should not rely on an imperfect jury to punish another fellow man that can't be

Nathanson uses his essay, Does It Matter If the Death Penalty Is Arbitrarily Administered, to combat the notion that capital punishment is an effective outcome for criminals. It is my goal to propose that capital punishment in itself is as fair outcome, and point out that it should remain established as long as the ones sentencing criminals to this fate are held to higher, more fair standards. The driving force behind Nathanson’s argument against capital punishment is statistics. While no one comes forth to outright say that race plays an important role in the decision on who receives capital punishment, there are statistical findings put forth by Bowers and Pierce state that killers of whites have the highest chance of being executed

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, and the debate about its abolition is the largest point of the essay written by Steve Earle, titled "A Death in Texas”. This form of punishment should be abolished for 3 reasons; First, It does not seem to have a direct effect on deterring murder rates, It has negative effects on society, and is inconsistent with American ideals. To begin, the death penalty is unnecessary since it is ineffective at deterring rates of murder. In fact, 88% of the country's top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide, according to the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. In opposition, supporters may argue that it may indeed help to deter murder rates as they have

Research Paper: Capital Punishment Capital punishment is one of the most controversial and talked-about topics in the United States today. It is an issue that is not explicitly mentioned in our constitution, so states have been left to interpret the law. As of April 2017, 32 states in the US legally allow the death penalty. Of the 18 states that have banned it, the most recent was Maryland in 2013. The topic is so controversial that the Supreme Court has gotten involved many times, deciding on more cases that have to do with capital punishment than most other subjects.

Backlogged Courts. And Three More Reasons the Modern Death Penalty Is a Failed Experiment. (Cover Story). " Time, vol. 185, no. 21, 08 June 2015, p. 26.

Jury Systems and Racial Injustice Juries are the way we make sure trials are fair, but when your jury is biased the result of the trial are often inequitable. Today we do our best to make sure trials have impartial jurors, but this was not always the case. In the 1930’s, and a lot of other decades too, the right for African Americans to have an unbiased jury was not fulfilled. This caused many African Americans to be sentenced to death when they otherwise would not have been.