Argument against Capital Punishment free essay sample

On moral, legal, deterrent, statistical, humane and economic grounds. Against Capital Punishment The death penalty today is considerably different from the way it used to be. In his history of the death penalty in America, Robert Johnson observed that for much of recorded history, executions were public spectacles (3). In the name of punishment, he notes, often gross bodily torture was inflicted upon the condemned. Historically, offenders were executed very soon after their crimes with much of the community directly or indirectly involved (Johnson 3). And, by contemporary standards, some of the crimes that were punished by death were decidedly trivial. For example, the execution of petty thieves (Johnson 3). On the other hand, Johnson notes that executions are preceded by years of confinement on death row and prisoners are no longer subjected to the indignity and pain of physical..