Death Penalty Debate Brutality
Capital Punishment The Death Penalty Debate Brutality
Early opponents of capital punishment objected to its brutality. Executions were public spectacles involving cruel methods. In addition, capital punishment was not reserved solely for the most serious crimes. Death was the penalty for a variety of less serious offenses.
The allegations of brutality inspired two different responses by those who supported executions. First, advocates contended that capital punishment was necessary for the safety of other citizens and therefore not gratuitous. Second, death penalty supporters sought to remove some of the most visibly gruesome aspects of execution. Executions that had been open to the public were relocated behind closed doors. Later, governments replaced traditional methods of causing death-such as hanging-with what were regarded as more modern methods, such as electrocution and poison gas.
The search for less brutal means of inflicting death continues to recent times. In 1977 Oklahoma became the first U.S. state to authorize execution by lethal injection-the administration of fatal amounts of fast-acting drugs and chemicals. Lethal injection is now the preferred method of execution in the majority of U.S. states. However, modern opponents of capital punishment contend that sterilized and depersonalized methods of execution do not eliminate the brutality of the penalty. (1)
Death Penalty Debate contents in this legal Encyclopedia also includes: Death Penalty Debate, Death Penalty Debate Brutality, Death Penalty Debate Dignity, Death Penalty Debate Effectiveness and Death Penalty Debate and Human Rights.
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