The death penalty, capital punishment or execution is the killing of a person by judicial process for retribution. Crimes that can lead to a death penalty are called capital offences or capital crimes. Practically every society has been practiced capital punishment. Execution of political enemies and criminals existed in nearly all societies – both to suppress political dissension and to punish crime. In most regions that practice capital punishment it is intended for murder, treason, espionage or as a part of military justice. Such sexual crimes as adultery, rape, incest and sodomy are death felonies.
In China human and drug trafficking and some serious cases of corruption are capital felonies. The formal execution was used by our predecessors and this fact is fixed in the recorded history. Most historical records and some primitive tribal practices prove that the death penalty was s part of the justice system. Communal punishment for misdeed commonly included compensation by the wrongdoer, corporal punishment, banishment and execution.
The last two methods of penalties were extremely rare, because within small communities crimes were infrequent and murder was almost always a crime of passion.People were afraid to inflict death on a member of the community. The crimes, committed by outsiders were considered to be an assault on the community and were severely punished. The methods varied from enslavement and beating to execution. Sometimes these methods were substituted by formal apology, compensation or blood feuds.
The last several centuries have seen the appearance of modern nation states. The idea of citizenship is almost fundamental one to the concept of nation state.Another important thing is the emergence of standing police forces and permanent penitential institutions. Owing to these aspects the death penalty became an increasingly unnecessary punishment in prevention of minor crimes such as theft.
The discussions about appropriateness of the death penalty exist in various states and positions can differ within a single political ideology or cultural region. Opponents of the capital punishment dispute that executions have led to the killing of innocent people, that life imprisonment is an effective and less expensive substitute.But the supporters try to prove that the execution is justified for killers by the principle of retribution, that life imprisonment is not an equally effective punishment. During the General Assembly’s 62nd session in 2007 the United Nations introduced a resolution calling for international moratorium on execution. In 2008 a large majority from all regions took over a second resolution calling for a ban on the use of the death penalty in the UN General Assembly on 20 November.
105 countries voted in support of the resolution, 48 voted against and 31 abstained.While international documents have restricted and in some cases even banned the death penalty, its application is still not against customary international law. Today, most countries rejected capital punishment. On average, in the past decade more than three countries a year have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. But more than 60% worldwide population lives in countries where the death penalty is still used. These are four most densely populated countries in the world, such as People’s Republic of China, India, United States and Indonesia.
Public support of the death penalty differs. In some abolitionist regions the majority of people support the death penalty. Abolition was often adopted according to political change, as when countries shifted from authoritarianism to democracy. The USA is the remarkable exclusion: some states have had prohibitions of capital punishment for decades, while others actively use it today. The USA Supreme Court resolved that a penalty must be proportional to the crime, otherwise, the penalty violates the Eight Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
The Supreme Court take into consideration three factors: a consideration of the offence’s gravity and the stringency of the penalty; a consideration of how the jurisdiction punishes its other criminals; and a consideration of how other jurisdictions punish the same crime. The principle of individualized sentencing exists in America. This principle consists in the rule that the jury must be guided by the particular circumstances of the criminal to impose a death sentence and the court must have conducted an individualized sentencing process.Also the jury, rather than a judge, must find an aggravating factor to exist for cases which can result in death penalty. After March 2006 states may use executions for situations in which the jury finds the aggravating and mitigating factors to equally balance.
There are classes of persons not eligible for the death penalty. In 2002 the Supreme Court resolved that capital punishment of mentally retarded criminals violates the prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment”. Moreover, the Supreme Court banned the death penalty for all juvenile offenders.They prove that teenagers are not mature and responsible; they possess greater vulnerability to negative influences.
The Court made a conclusion that juvenile offenders undertake diminished culpability for their crimes. The manner of execution may be prescribed by a legislature, but it may not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments. The manner of penalty may not afflict unnecessary or lewd pain upon the criminal. State courts and lower federal courts have rejected to strike down electrocution and hanging as inadmissible methods of execution.
