Anna Phillips
5/10/17
Research Paper
Death Penalty and Lynchings The alarming increase in state executions is a cause for concern, especially in a society that values equality of all before the law. Executions are an inhumane and potentially unjust method of punishing criminals, much like lynchings were in the past. It does little to dissuade people from committing crimes and does nothing to bring restitution to those who have been the victims of crimes. Worst of all, executions carry with them a finality that should only be undertaken with the up most of certainty of a person’s guilt. Many of those on death row wouldn’t have been executed had they had the DNA evidence and other new advanced tools to help prove their innocence. Several people were proven innocent after it was too late. The courts, during a disheartening time in American history, were failing African-American
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At least 1,634 people were executed in 2015. That is a 50% increase since 2014. In 2015, four countries – Fiji, Madagascar, the Republic of Congo and Suriname – abolished the death penalty. One hundred and forty countries have abolished the death penalty completely. Many countries abolished the death penalty due to the fact that it is dehumanizing. In Blue Front written by Martha Collins, she looks back at lynchings and what was done to those victims. “Often they cut off parts for souvenirs. The time they cut out the heart they sliced it up. Sometimes they cut off fingers they cut off toes. They cut off other parts to cut them off. Often they made the victims eat those parts.” (Collins. Page 59) Kicking, cutting of limbs, spitting on, and dismembering the body of these people who's only crime was the color of their skin, was the town peoples way of belittling them. Treating anybody in this repulsive manner is treating them as if they were