Death penalty which amendment

Answer : It depends on what one believes the deterrent effect is. Death Penalty Before discussing capital punishment, we must determine what punishment is and what the main theories of punishment are. Punishment is harm inflicted by a person in a position of authority upon another person who is judged to have violated the law.

NOTES: Since typically harming people is wrong, punishment is guilty utile proven innocent, as it were. So, the burden of proof is on its proponents. The notion of authority is crucial. The main theories of punishment are: Retributivist, which aim at the balance justice: by the punishment proportionally fitting the crime justice is done.

NOTES: There is empirical evidence that applying retribution even at a cost to oneself is innate; whether it is justified is another issue.

The Constitution, at least as understood by its proponents, does not consider the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment. Notes: The Constitution only allows capital punishment and does not require it. The issue of interpreting the Constitution: Originalism Textualist approach Purposivist approach Non-originalism: the idea of evolving standards.

Some constitutional problems for the death penalty Evolving standards of morality make the death penalty impinge on the cruel and unusual punishment clause Answer: An originalist would say that then one should amend the Constitution Who decides what the present standards of morality are? The issue is complicated because there is a substantial percentage of the population that is in favor of the death penalty.

Unequal distribution of the death penalty, e. Moral problems for capital punishment : The state is as wrong to execute a murderer as the murderer was in killing his victim. Louisiana , U. Because only six states in the country permitted execution as a penalty for child rape, the Supreme Court found that national consensus rendered the death penalty disproportionate in these cases.

To impose a death sentence, the jury must be guided by the particular circumstances of the criminal, and the court must have conducted an individualized sentencing process. In Ring v. Arizon a , U. The Supreme Court further refined the requirement of "a finding of aggravating factors" in Brown v. Sanders , U. For cases in which an appellate court rules a sentencing factor to be invalid, the sentence imposed becomes unconstitutional unless the jury found some other aggravating factor that encompasses the same facts and circumstances as the invalid factor.

Kansas v. Marsh , U. Under Marsh , states may impose the death penalty when the jury finds any aggravating and mitigating factors to be equally weighted, without violating the principle of individualized sentencing.

A legislature may prescribe the manner of execution, but the manner may not inflict unnecessary or wanton pain upon the criminal. State courts and lower federal courts have refused to strike down hanging and electrocution as impermissible methods of execution. The first case was U. Jackson U. The Court held that this practice was unconstitutional because it encouraged defendants to waive their right to a jury trial to ensure they would not receive a death sentence.

The other case was Witherspoon v. Illinois U. In , the Supreme Court again addressed the problems associated with the role of jurors and their discretion in capital cases. The Court decided Crampton v. Ohio and McGautha v. California consolidated under U. The defendants argued it was a violation of their Fourteenth Amendment right to due process for jurors to have unrestricted discretion in deciding whether the defendants should live or die, and such discretion resulted in arbitrary and capricious sentencing.

Crampton also argued that it was unconstitutional to have his guilt and sentence determined in one set of deliberations, as the jurors in his case were instructed that a first-degree murder conviction would result in a death sentence. The Court, however, rejected these claims, thereby approving of unfettered jury discretion and a single proceeding to determine guilt and sentence.

The issue of arbitrariness of the death penalty was again be brought before the Supreme Court in in Furman v. Georgia , Jackson v. To understand their approach, let us revisit the four questions raised in the joint statement concerning the settled history and meaning of the Eighth Amendment: 1 What standard should the Court use in deciding whether a punishment is unconstitutionally cruel?

Justices Scalia and Thomas argue that the four questions raised above should be answered as follows: 1 The standards of cruelty that prevailed in , the year the Eighth Amendment was adopted, provide the appropriate benchmark for determining whether a punishment is cruel and unusual. If a punishment was acceptable in , it must be acceptable today.

A life sentence for a parking violation, for example, would not violate the Constitution. Since flogging, branding, and various forms of bodily mutilation were permissible in the Eighteenth Century, few modern forms of punishment are likely to fall into this category.

In other words, a common punishment might be more cruel than a rare one: For example, it would be more cruel to commit torture on a mass scale than on rare occasions, not less. The best way to understand this is to run through those four questions once again, using our new understanding of the original meaning of the Clause:.

Rather, the benchmark is longstanding prior practice. If a given punishment has been continuously used for a very long time, this is powerful evidence that multiple generations of Americans have considered it reasonable and just. This does not mean that any punishment that was once part of our tradition can still be used today.

If a once-traditional punishment falls out of usage for several generations, it becomes unusual. If a legislature then tries to reintroduce it, courts should compare how harsh it is relative to those punishment practices that are still part of our tradition.

If a punishment is significantly harsher than punishments traditionally given for the same or similar crimes, it is cruel and unusual, even though the same punishment might be acceptable for other crimes. For example, it would be cruel and unusual to impose a life sentence for a parking violation, but not for murder. If it fell out of usage for multiple generations, however, it might become cruel and unusual. This has already occurred with respect to some once-traditional applications of the death penalty.

It is no longer constitutional to execute a person for theft, for example, because this punishment fell out of usage for this crime a long time ago, and the punishments that have replaced it are far less severe.

If a court were to find that their effect is significantly harsher than the longstanding punishment practices they have replaced, it could appropriately find them cruel and unusual.

Burr lost the election, and he blamed Hamilton, so he challenged Hamilton to a duel. Dueling continued in the United States until the midth century.

Burr was never prosecuted for the murder of Hamilton. Today, dueling is deemed unconscionable.