Question

The Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 with their decision in Gregg v. Georgia. Are you for or against the death penalty being imposed for capital crimes? Give your most compelling reasons for your position.

Answer 1

In these cases, the Court ruled that the statescould use capital punishment (the death penalty), but only if they followed certain rules. If the states did not follow these rules when they sentenced people to death, they would be violating the Constitution of the United States by giving out a cruel and unusual punishment.
In 1972, the Court had ruled that the way Georgia was using the death penalty was unconstitutional. After this decision, all of the states stopped using the death penalty while they changed their capital punishment laws. Because of this, there were no executions in the United States between 1972 and 1976.
The death penalty does not always violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The death penalty may be constitutional if states follow certain rules, and appeals courts review death sentences. If the death penalty is mandatory, then it is unconstitutional.

The death penalty is a cheap way for politically inclined people to pretend to their fearful constituencies that something is being done to combat crime.
Jan van Rooyen, South African law professor
When the death penalty is carried out, it is final. Mistakes that are made cannot be unmade. An innocent person may be released from prison for a crime they did not commit, but an execution can never be reversed.
There is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than a prison term. In fact, crime figures from countries which have banned the death penalty have not risen. In some cases they have actually gone down.

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