Death Penalty: The Gregg V. Georgia Case

When looking at the death penalty from a legal standpoint there is much debate on whether it is constitutional. The Gregg v. Georgia case ruled in 1976 that capital punishment was not in violation of the Eighth or the Fourteenth Amendment and that it could only be imposed if one of ten circumstances could be found to prove the guilt of the offender without any reasonable doubt. (Gregg v. Georgia, (n.d.)).

When it comes to the viewpoint of those in our police system there seems to be a common agreement on the topic of the death penalty. Law enforcement officers see the death penalty as more of a hindrance than a deterrence when it comes to sentencing. It isn’t lowering the rate of heinous crimes happening in the United States and it’s costing

Killing a female is something that was unheard of at that time. In a trial with a female judge and a jury that was predominately females, right of the twelve jurors were women. The prosecutor called a witness that testified against Tucker and her accomplice in the crime. The defendant called none. After a mere seventy minutes of deliberation, Karla Faye Tucker was convicted of murder in the course of an armed robbery. When it came time for the punishment phase of the trial, the actual expectation of her receiving the death penalty was very low. Even though the state of Texas is one of the leading states when it came to executions, it hadn’t had a female execution since the Civil War, around 1863. During the trial, Tucker, had visits from Christian Ministries and prior to her conviction she became a believer and follower of Christ and declared that she had

There is obviously a very large and obvious difference between the amount of male offenders that are convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death as compared to females. The truth is that a man and a woman could commit the very same crime and the man would get the harsher punishment, all because of gender. Females are portrayed as the weaker sex, fueled by emotions and clearly not able to reign in their feelings. To say that a woman is more likely to commit a crime of passion and not be a serial criminal is absurd. They are just as likely to commit the same crimes as a man; they are just held to different standards that male offenders are. Women can be just as violent can be just as violent as males when committing crimes, just look at Karla Faye Tucker. She murdered two people in cold blood without even batting an eye, she went on with her everyday life until she was apprehended and showed no remorse in the event until she suddenly “found Jesus.” Darlie Routier is another woman that committed a violent crime, killing her to small boys before turning the knife on herself in an attempt to have an alibi for the police. She claimed that she woke up to someone killing her boys after breaking into her home. She received the death penalty for capital murder for a child, one of the major crimes that will get a female offender a death sentence. To show just how callous she