This essay will concentrate upon the constitutionality of the death penalty and the importance of the topic to both the writer and legal profession by analyzing the Fifth, Sixth, the Eighth, the Fourteenth Amendments as well as Supreme Court cases. There will be an extensive review of the undeniable reality that the United States is the only country of the western industrialized nations to use still capital punishment, which is unusual and cruel punishment in the eyes of the laws. It is cruel and unusual because both guilty and innocent persons wait on death row for execution for up to 30 years, and may develop a syndrome called "Death Row Phenomenon" or "Death Row Syndrome" that is a disastrous mental illness resulting from long-term solitary isolation. The death penalty is the compelling remembrance of various corporal pains that were common during the period of slavery. The death penalty should be abolished because it is not a deterrent to crimes, it is racist, it penalizes the poor who cannot hire competent lawyers, and there is no certainty that a person on death row is guilty and death is permanent. The Death Penalty is Unconstitutional Because No One Has the Right to Take Another's Life. Public executions were popular throughout the 19th …show more content…
Amnesty International, in 2008 declared that "The death penalty is the ultimate rejection of human rights. It is the planned and cold-blooded murder of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. A person who cannot create or keeps someone from dying naturally, consequently should not have any rights to take away any life. (Amnesty International, 2011,