In the Oxford Dictionaries (2015) the death penalty is defined as “the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime” it also been referred to as capital punishment. Historians have evidence that that the death penalty has been around since Babylonian times but could possibly go back even farther. According to Reggio (2014), “The first death sentence historically recorded occurred in 16th Century BC Egypt where the wrongdoer, a member of nobility, was accused of magic, and ordered to take his own life” (Paragraph1). As the centuries went by the death penalty spread from country to country where it gained certain limitations and applications depending on the location. When European settlers came to America …show more content…
This paper vocalized the opinions of people who were against the death penalty and snowballed into the abolishment movement. During this time one of the first attempts to change the death penalty was enacted when Thomas Jefferson tried to introduce a bill that only allowed the death penalty to be used for people who committed murder and treason (History of the Death Penalty 2001 pg. 2). Although this bill was rejected it led way to other states changing/adding limitations to their death penalties. In the beginning of the nineteenth century the abolishment movement grew and many states lowered the amount of crimes that resulted in the death penalty as well as built more state penitentiaries (History of the Death Penalty 2001 pg. 3). In 1846 Michigan was the first state to abolish the death penalty except for treason with Rhode Island and Wisconsin following suit (Capital Punishment Time Line 2008). Near the end of the nineteenth century the civil war diverted attention away from the abolishment movement with the anti-slavery movement taking the attention and after the war the electric chair was introduced (Death Penalty Information Center …show more content…
This attitude was short lived and when America entered World War I five out of the six states reinstated the death penalty (Death Penalty Information Center 2015). Despite the death penalty being reinstated, many states were trying to find more humane ways to enact the death penalty; Nevada came up with cyanide gas as an option. Even though the states were trying to find more humane ways to die, the 1930’s had the more executions than any decade since (Reggio 2015). After the 1930’s the number of people executed continuously dropped each decade up until the mid 1980’s as the sentiment of anti capital punishment