Capital Punishment In America

244 Words1 Pages
The history of capital punishment in America can be traced as far back as the early 17th century when George Kendall of Virginia was executed in 1608 for allegedly committing treason. Daniel Frank, also from Virginia, was executed in 1622 for theft. Whereas some English colonies (Virginia, Massachusetts, New York) were parochial in their application of the death penalty for crimes ranging from murder, sodomy, burglary, arson, rape and treason, others (South Jersey, Pennsylvania) were less so. By 1776, most of the colonies had roughly comparable death statutes with hanging being the usual sentence. Not until the Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria published On Crimes and Punishment in 1767 did the reform movement gain strength. Beccaria proposed