Death penalty Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Death penalty - Term Paper Example g at sea and crucifixion (Melusky & Pesto 8).Unlike in the present where many people do not witness such punishments, in the past death penalties were done in public. Apart from explaining on various forms of death penalties, the essay will also relay more information on its effects to the society. In the US, before the rise of legal institutions, cases of death penalties were quite rampant in all states. Since there were no modern legal institutions, many crimes ranked as capital whose punishment was death. For instance, in the US, crimes such as rape, kidnapping, arson and forgery were punishable by death (Walker 19). Most of these crimes were punishable by hanging and the process normally took place in public places where everybody would see. In the past, such events were quite common and usually attracted a large number of spectators some of whom came to do business during the occasion (Melusky & Pesto 2). Tens of thousands normally showed up in such events with the intension of viewing the hanging. This changed as from the 1960s when a modern legal institution was set up. To date, there have been numerous debates on the whether sentencing a person to death is justice as claimed. Most legal firms claim that a death penalty is justice only if one has committed a capital crime such as killing another person. Legal officers claim that one ought to receive punishment that is equal to the crime he or she has committed. According to Guernsey (9), even Biblically, an offender was to receive an eye for an eye; this implied that punishment was to fit the crime committed. Studies show that death penalties began in the US around the 1600 when the first English colonialists landed in the US (Guernsey 10). Captain George Kendall went down on record as the first person to die because of a death sentence. According to Melusky and Pesto (7), Captain Kendall was sentenced to death by the firing squad method. This was after an accusation of spying for the Spanish nation