| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="OldPapers" |
|---|
| | | America in a World Context | |
<
< | Thurman Arnold says that social creeds, like justice and democracy, mean nothing outside of the institutions which they are attached to | Works Cited. America’s use of the death penalty exemplifies this because while the United States uses the death penalty, its international allies reject it. The United States is the only western country to use capital punishment, and according to Amnesty International, America had the sixth highest execution rate in 2006 behind countries America identifies as enemies: Iran and Iraq | Source. While America asserts itself as a just and free democracy, its use of capital punishment actually separates it from its allies, who find capital punishment to be contradictory to the values America claims to uphold. | >
> | Thurman Arnold says that social creeds, like justice and democracy, mean nothing outside of the institutions which they are attached to | Works Cited. America’s use of the death penalty exemplifies this because while the United States uses the death penalty, its international allies reject it. The United States is the only western country to use capital punishment, and according to Amnesty International, America had the sixth highest execution rate in 2006 behind countries America identifies as enemies: Iran and Iraq | Source. While America asserts itself as a just and free democracy, its use of capital punishment actually separates it from its allies, who find capital punishment to be contradictory to the values America claims to uphold. | | |
Valuing Life | |
<
< | In countless abortion cases, the Supreme Court has expressed a state interest in life and regulated abortion, even banning certain methods of abortion, in an effort to further that interest. However, the death penalty works in direct opposition to this belief, and the fact that the people being executed are criminals does not justify the contradiction. First, it should not be at the court’s discretion to determine whose life should be ended by the death penalty. If law is about prediction, as Holmes believes, the arbitrary enforcement of the death penalty makes it obvious that courts should not be determining the value of life. | Works Cited. Geography, gender, and most importantly, race, also affect its employment. The biggest indicator of a capital punishment sentence is not the crime; it is the race of the victim. Even though whites and blacks are murdered at almost equal rates, murderers of white victims are 80% more likely to be sentenced to death | Source. | >
> | In countless abortion cases, the Supreme Court has expressed a state interest in life and regulated abortion, even banning certain methods of abortion, in an effort to further that interest. However, the death penalty works in direct opposition to this belief, and the fact that the people being executed are criminals does not justify the contradiction. First, it should not be at the court’s discretion to determine whose life should be ended by the death penalty. If law is about prediction, as Holmes believes, the arbitrary enforcement of the death penalty makes it obvious that courts should not be determining the value of life. | Works Cited. Geography, gender, and most importantly, race, also affect its employment. The biggest indicator of a capital punishment sentence is not the crime; it is the race of the victim. Even though whites and blacks are murdered at almost equal rates, murderers of white victims are 80% more likely to be sentenced to death | Source. | | | Further, even if criminals lives are of less value, so as to justify the death penalty, the death penalty is not narrowly tailored enough to not infringe on the lives of the innocent. During the same period of time that 12 people were executed in Illinois, 13 people were exonerated and freed from death row. After the fact, Governor Ryan put Franklin’s words temporarily into action and commuted 156 inmate sentences| Source. This trend was not followed countrywide. Since 1973, 127 people in 26 states have been released from death row after being exonerated | Source. The social creeds regarding the value of life and innocence are purely rhetorical, not based in social statistics, which prove that innocent life is being lost in the process of capital punishment. |
|