Pros And Cons Of Texas Capital Punishment

The moral and ethical debate on the sentencing and enforcement of capital punishment has long baffled the citizens and governing powers of the United States. Throughout time, the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, and the vast majority beliefs of Americans, have been in a constant state of perplexity. Before the 1960s, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Many argue that capital punishment is an absolute necessity, in order to deter crime, and to ‘make things right’ following a heinous crime of murder. Despite the belief that capital punishment may seem to be the only tangible, permanent solution to ending future capital offenses, the United States should remove this cruel and unnecessary form of punishment from our current judicial systems.

The article, ‘Judge: Cop Killer Brandon Daniel competent can dismiss lawyers’ published in July of 2015, talks about Daniel’s case—overall punishment. This article is about a twenty-six year old man, Brandon Daniel, who murdered an Austin, Texas police officer. The police officer, Jaime Padron, received a call involving shoplifting at a Wal-Mart in the north side of town. Both, Brandon Daniel and Padron were wrestling on the floor when the officer was shot dead. In this situation, this murder is considered capital murder. When an individual is sentenced with capital murder, they are sentenced execution or in other words the death penalty. Texas is known for having the highest number of death penalties since 1976. However in this case,

Debate over capital punishment is nothing new, but it reaches a whole new level when the accused is mentally ill. The question then becomes… was the perpetrator aware of his heinous actions by knowing right from wrong at the time of the crime or was the mental illness controlling his actions? While being sympathetic to the grief and heart break of the victim’s loved ones, I believe that execution for the mentally ill should not be allowed, because often their illness makes them incapable of knowing right and wrong of their actions. Many of those with mental illnesses often go undiagnosed and untreated, either by choice or by financial circumstances, because of the stigma and general lack of understanding associated with this type of diagnosis in our society.

“Complex/Capital Case.” I stared at these words typed on my local county sheriff’s inmate directory. Above was an image of a man — face beaten and showing dozens of gang-affiliated tattoos — and I attempted to see a resemblance between his face and my own. I spent hours researching what “complex/capital case” means, and once I read the words “death penalty,” and although I knew that he had yet to be tried, what I did know was that this was the end for him. On the screen in front of me was the image of a man who was convicted of seventy-one counts of assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and attempted murder.

In the United States, 36 states participate in capital punishment in one or more of the five different forms, including lethal injection, electrocution, gas chambers, firing squad, and hanging (“Description of Execution”). After being banned in 1972, several states sought to bring back capital punishment by providing sentence guidelines for both jury and judges when deciding the fit case in which to impose death (“Introduction to the Death Penalty”). These guidelines proved the punishment was constitutional under the Eight Amendment, proving it wasn’t “cruel and unusual” punishment under the correct circumstances. Three procedural reforms were approved by the case Gregg vs. Georgia, including bifurcated trials (separating guilt and penalty phases of trial), automatic appellate reviews of court decisions, and proportionality review to help eliminate sentencing disparities (“Introduction to the Death Penalty”). Ever since these changes in 1976, the death penalty

Although the Texas Criminal Justice System gives punishments that are deemed fit to the gravity of the crime, the death penalty is still too harsh of a crime. Prisoners are stripped off their Eighth Amendment rights when they go through the execution, which is an inhumane, cruel and unusual punishment. This can be examined through the methods that the criminal and justice systems and the method of execution.

Having to execute prisoners in Texas is a critical issue in our criminal justice system. The executions are carried out on capital murderers. It all started back in the 1800’s when counties carryed out their own exectution method; prisoners were hung. Than, in the1920’s the state of Texas ordered that all executions were to be carried out to Walls Unit, Huntsville for “The Electric Chair.” Ever since 1982, Texas was the first U.S state to execute with the “Lethal Injection.” The executions in Texas are carried out in various ways, but the primary way of executing inmates now is by lethal injection.

For instance, the cost to execute someone is 5x times more than keeping them in jail. Cases without the death penalty cost roughly about $740,000 depending on the situation, while cases with the death penalty cost roughly $1.26 million, and maintaining each death row prisoners cost taxpayers $90,000 more per year than a prisoner in general population. Additionally, Texas has made 474 executions since 1976, and the next closest state to that number is Virginia with 109 executions. There are still several states that have made 0 executions or very little compared to Texas. Moreover, some argue against the death penalty because of wrongful convictions and innocent killings. In the Larry Griffin case, an investigation by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund has uncovered evidence that Griffin may have been innocent of his crime. Investigators say his case is the strongest demonstration yet on executing an innocent man, due to the fact it violates the Eighth Amendment. There’s also principles at conflict, like popular sovereignty and federalism because opposition to the death penalty has increased dramatically since the 1900s. There are 31 states with the death penalty legalized and 19 that have abolished it; however, there’s 5 states that have a moratorium on executions. To conclude, the states depict if the death penalty is legal or not based on the people’s votes, and the states having the power to vote represents

(Birmingham, Alabama) One of only a few states in the nation that fails to provide a statewide indigent defender program, Alabama also lacks post-conviction counsel for those inmates on death row. Clayton Tartt, an associate with Birmingham's Parkman White, LLP, a birmingham criminal defense firm, feels this is a critical flaw in the state's judicial system and works to provide representation to those who otherwise cannot afford it. Mr. Tartt volunteers with the Alabama Post-Conviction Relief Project to help individuals in this situation. Cody Owens of Weld Magazine recently interviewed Mr. Tartt about this issue.

The Declaration of Independence for the United States has done a good job at protecting its citizens from undue burdens; however there is one small subsection of the population in which the American legal system is failing. The American judicial system is failing those on death row in Texas. The state of Texas leads the nation in the amount of executions performed. (Amnesty International) Unfortunately, there are legal, moral, and racial issues with these sentences. Today, there are 260 inmates on death row. (Amnesty International) Additionally, since 1976, there have been 474 total executions. (DPIC) This is a problem because research states that nearly 4% of all death row inmates are actually innocent. (Rogers) This nation wide data is relevant for this policy brief because with such a high number of the states’ inmates on death row there is a

Many death row inmates were convicted while being defended by a court appointed lawyer who are often the worst paid and most inexperienced and least skillful lawyers. The Bar Association published guidelines for a good defense in a death penalty case”. Anti-death Penalty ( 2010)

Texas has for a long time been the state that was most proudly pro-death penalty. Since 1977, the state has accounted for just under 40% of the country’s executions, and has the third-largest death row. Measures are often on the table to restrict prisoners’ rights even further (the rights to a specially prepared “last meal” were ended in 2011) and to expedite the legal process, which would result in even more executions. The state justifies this in two ways: by stating that murders deserve this punishment and by claiming that a harsh death penalty will deter future potential murderers from killing anyone else. The first argument is revenge-based and has no place in our court system, but if people could be saved through this process, it’s at least worth a discussion. However, by these results, we can see that this is not the case, rendering both arguments void.

Defenders of the death penalty often claim that the execution of criminals will teach others not to do bad, initially decreasing crime rates. This hasty form of generalization statistically proves to be wrong. “When it comes to criminals, Texas has the toughest punishments along with a strict court system. The state of Texas spent four hundred and seventy million dollars in 2001 just for punishing convicts. Despite all that money and stern punishment, the crime rate is still twenty four percent higher than the national average, according to 2003 data” (Gonzales). This supports the fact that tough punishment doesn’t necessarily help crime. Ironically, the harshest state in the U.S continues to house the maximum number of criminal acts. The death penalty, a harsh form of punishment, clearly doesn’t lower crime rate.

In Stephen Bright’s article, “The Death Penalty as the Answer to Crime: Costly, Counterproductive, and Corrupting” Bright asserts that capital punishment does not work because it is racially biased, the quality of the lawyers and attorneys supplied by the state to poor defendants is unfair, and that the law system currently in place does not accomplish its true goals. Bright defends his claim with logos and ethos by examining the opinions of judges and district attorneys, and by describing experience within the fields of human rights and law himself in order to persuade the reader to take up more cases for those on death row. Given the language used in this article Bright is writing to an audience with intermediate to professional experience within the field of law, and a willingness to adopt a new idea on the constitutionality behind the death penalty.

Georgia, one can easily make the statement that the taking of a human life in return for another does not agree with the standards of decency of our maturing society. Justice Brennan goes further to state that “death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality…” (Brennan 32). This argument is one of the major summarizing points of Brennan’s argument – the death penalty is incredibly severe and irreversibly final. According to an article in the USA Today by columnist Jacqueline Blais, 117 people have been freed from death row on account of innocence (Blais). This figure is astonishing when one considers the innocents who slip through the cracks in states like Texas, where the average death row inmate has just ten years to prove his or her innocence from behind bars.