Laws Surrounding The Death Penalty Essay

Laws surrounding the death penalty date back to the 18th century. These laws can be found in the Code of King Hammurabi, which codified the death penalty for over 20 different types of crimes. This code was essentially the first explicit code of laws that existed. The death penalty can also be found in the Hittite Code, the Draconian Code of Athens as well as the Roman Law of 12 Tablets. When European settlers came to America, they brought along with them the idea of capital punishment. The British largely influenced the idea of capital punishment in America. The first recorded execution in the newly established colonies was early in the 1600’s. When many people think of execution in the colonial times, I believe that they tend to think that everyone was in favor of the death penalty, even for petty crimes such as stealing. Or at the very least that there was very little, if any, push back against capital punishment. Contrary to popular belief, there was a significant abolitionist movement that existed around 1700. Its roots can be found in the writings of European theorists such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Bentham. In 1767 Cesare Beccaria's essay, On Crimes and Punishment, had a significant impact on the abolitionist movement. “The first attempted reforms of the death penalty in the U.S. occurred when Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill to revise Virginia's death penalty laws. The bill

I have discussed the issue of capital punishment in terms of it being cruel. The argument made for the death penalty being unusual falls short rather quickly. As I said before, the death penalty has been around since the Hammurabi Code, which dates back to 1754 BC. Therefore giving a criminal the death penalty is not very unusual since it has been carried out for thousands of