The Death Penalty When Life Generates Death - Legally

The Death Penalty

Chapter 1 History of Death Penalty

Early Death Penalty Laws

The first established death penalty laws date as far as the eighteen century B.C in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon.

Nineteenth Century –Changes in the Death Penalty laws

After the civil war new developments in the means of execution emerged.

New York built the first electric chair in 1888 , and in the 1980 executed William Kemmler.

Soon , other states adopted this method of execution.

Constitutionality of the Death Penalty in America

The 1960s brought challenges to the fundamental legality of the death penalty.

Before then some important amendments of the United states constitution were interpreted as permitting the death penalty .

In the early 1960s it was suggested that the death penalty was “a cruel and unusual” punishment and therefore was unconstitutional.

Limitations of Death Penalty within the United States

After World War II, many European countries abandoned or restricted the death after signing and ratifying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights treaties. The U.S. retained the death penalty, but established limitations on capital punishment.

Limitations of Death Penalty within the United StatesRace

Race became many times argued in the forefront of the Supreme Court as there was racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty by presenting a statistical analysis showing a pattern of racial disparities in death sentenced , based on the race of the victim or even on the race of the defendant.

Limitations of Death Penalty within the United StatesJuveniles

In the late 1980s , the Supreme Court decided three cases regarding the constitutionality of executing juvenile offenders. Until than children were sentenced to death too.