Death Penalty And The Eighth Amendment

Death Penalty and The Eighth Amendment


The expression “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” has taken on a whole new

meaning.  Lately, murderers have been getting a punishment equal to their crime,

death.  In 1967, executions in the United States were temporarily suspended to

give the federal appellate courts time to decide whether or not the death

penalty was unconstitutional.  Then, in 1972, the United States Supreme Court

ruled in the case of  “Furman versus Georgia” that the death penalty violated

the Eight Amendments. According to the Eighth Amendment, “Excessive bail shall

not be required, no excessive fines imposed, nor cruel or unusual punishments

inflicted.”  After the Supreme Court made this ruling, states reviewed their

death penalty laws.  In 1976, in the case of “Gregg versus Georgia” the Supreme

Court ruled state death penalty laws were not unconstitutional.  Presently in

the United States the death penalty can only be used as punishment for

intentional killing.  Still, the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment and

should be outlawed in the United States.


     Currently in the United States there are five methods used for executing

criminals: the electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, hanging, and

firing squad, each of them equally cruel and unusual in there own ways.

     When a person is sentenced to death by electrocution he strapped to a

chair and electrodes are attached to his head and leg.  The amount of voltage is

raised and lowered a few times and death is supposed to occur within three

minutes.  Three whole minutes with electricity flowing through someone's body,

while his flesh burns.  Three minutes may not seem like a very long time, but to

someone who is waiting for his body to die, three minutes can feel like an

eternity.

     Three minutes is the approximate time it takes for a person to die if

everything goes right, but in some cases it takes longer for people to die.  In

1990, Jesse Tafero, a prisoner in Florida, remained conscious for four minutes

while witnesses watched ashes fall from his head.  In Georgia in 1984, it took

nearly twenty minutes for Alpha Otis Stephens to die.  At 12:18 am on December

12, he was shocked with electricity for two minutes, and his body still showed

signs of life.  The doctors had to wait six minutes to examine his body because

it was too hot to touch.  Stephens was still alive, so he was electrocuted for

another two minutes.  Finally at 12:37 am doctors pronounced him dead.

     When a person is executed in the gas chamber he is strapped to a chair

in an airtight room.  A cyanide pellet is dropped in sulfuric acid, which forms

a lethal gas.  The prisoner remains conscious for a few minutes while struggling

to breath.  These gas chambers are similar to the ones used by the Nazi's in

World War II concentration camps.  Fifty years ago, America was quick to condemn

the Germans for persecuting Jew's, but, today, in 1996 Americans execute their

own people the exact same way.

     Lethal injection is the newest form of execution in the United States.

The person being executed is injected with a deadly dose of barbiturates through

an intravenous tube in his arm.  This method is considered the most humane and

efficient way of execution, but a federal judge noted that “a slight error in

dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while

dying, a sentient witness of his or her 
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