The Death Penalty and its Legal Implications
The legal team will impose the death penalty on those who commit horrific crimes against humanity. It has various categories, and the legal stratification of the degree of violations determines the intensity of the verdict and the applicable criminal code. Those who commit crimes that endanger the lives of others face the death sentence as the ultimate and most severe punishment. This article will endeavor to revisit the various aspects of the death penalty, their distribution of the cases especially in the US, the challenges and the hallmarks that have been achieved so far so good in the legal process of either abolishing or allaying the dominance of the judgment across the entire globe (SAGHAFI, 2012).
Prevalence of Death Penalties in the US
The US has the most prevalence of death penalties in the world. The distribution of the cases is quite uneven since there are internal feuds that emanate out of the different ideological stances as to the validity or legality of the capital punishment. The Quakers and other opponents of the penalty have always come to grips with the proponents because of the colossal controversy that enshrouds the capital judgment. The inhuman and brutal killing that assumes many forms has called for human activists and humanitarian organizations to raise their voices against the trend because of the sovereignty and sanctity of human life as stipulated from the holy books. The trend seems to have been partially broken since there were myriad public executions and hangings that were undertaken in the ancient times by the colonialists. The colonialists preferred to condemn offenders to life banishment to seclusion or maximum jail terms rather than killing them. The death penalty was done through hangings, public execution by the firing squad, lethal gassing, lethal injection, electrocution by the electric chair. The death penalty has undergone intense evolution so that an easier, quicker, and cheaper way of terminating the life of a criminal. Proponents of the penalty claim that the penalty helps to winnow out the worst criminals from the worse and that is embraced as a deterrent, prevention or final measures which are bound to discourage the occurrence of future crimes. Opponents of the judgment base their argument on the sacredness and sanctity of human life as far as the Bill of Rights is concerned. The rate of executions in the US has declined significantly through various moves that have been undertaken by different parties ranging from parties to church leaders. There has been an increase in the time spent for death judgment, rising challenges on the validity and constitutionality of death sentence, politicization of the capital punishment, the decreasing utilization of clemency from the executive, increasing support for the death penalty from the public, and the skyrocketing complexity and cost of death penalty have cumulatively challenged the viability of the capital punishment. The aspects that are attached to the validity and legality of the capital punishment have been deeply exhausted and the trend of the same in the world has been mapped. Various stakeholders such as the United Nations have vehemently condemned the punishment and that has served to momentarily arrest or deter the meting out of the verdict.
Conclusion
The Death penalty has met more challenges as time goes by and hence the different legal facilities in the world have strived to minimize the capital punishment as much as possible. The support for the abolition of the punishment has emanated from many stakeholders who advocate for human sanctity and human life. The world is slowly coming to terms with the essence of eliminating the punishment though at a gradual process. There have been only isolated cases of the death penalty but the change is perpetual.
Work Cited
SAGHAFI, K. (2012). THE DEATH PENALTY, IN OTHER WORDS, PHILOSOPHY. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 50, pp.136-142.
