Capital Punishment Essay: The Death Penalty In The United States

The Death Penalty also referred to as Capital Punishment has been around for a long time. According to the textbook Intro to Administration of Justice when the “first Europeans settlers came to the Americas, they brought with them the legal system of their native country which included the penalty of death...” (Bohm, 2014). The first ever recorded execution in the United States was George Kendall in 1608 for being a spy for Spain. Since 1608, there have been about 20,000 legal executions in the US. (Bohm, 2014). Halfway through the 19th century many states in the northwest stopped public executions and made state penataries (“introduction to the death penalty”). They did this so people would not watch these executions. After a while, many states

During the first half of the twentieth century “six states completely outlawed the death penalty and three limited it to the rarely committed crimes of treason and first degree murder of a law enforcement official” (“Introduction to the Death penalty”). This was done because they wanted to use it only when a heinous crime was committed. Many U.S citizens were afraid and panicked when the threat of the Russian Revolution happened. So this lead “five of the six abolitionist states reinstated their death penalty in 1920s” (“introduction to the Death penalty”). Many people felt more protected if the death penalty was in action and that is why they brought it back. In 1924, Gee Jon was the first to be executed by lethal gas but it failed miserably because they tried to pump gas in his cells and this lead to the creation of the gas chamber. (“introduction to the Death penalty”). This shows that their attempt of making the death penalty humane had failed. Once the 1950’s came along many states stopped the death penalty or limited the penalty and the number of executions dropped and only 715 executions were done. (“Introduction to the death