photo credit: Zion Clifton
Cruel and unusual punishment methods have been around for decades. From boiling to slicing to impalement, sick punishments are nothing new. Although these methods are now illegal due to the addition of the Eighth Amendment, there is still one form of punishment that people claim is cruel: the death penalty.
The Eighth Amendment passed in 1791 outlaws the use of excessive bails or fines in criminal trials, as well as punishments considered “cruel and unusual” according to Rebecca Whitney’s Government class. When this amendment came about, the punishments that were outlawed were those like beheading and public dissecting. But now, the punishments in question are lethal injection, the electric chair, lethal gas, hanging, and death by firing squad.
The death penalty, by any method, is unjust, and unreliable and should be outlawed. This is not to say that criminals don’t deserve to be punished, because they absolutely do. Rather, I’m saying that there are too many problems and difficulties each year involving these punishments, and we have reached a point where they are not worth it.
Since 1976, 1,392 executions have been conducted through lethal injection alone, according to Statista. In that same period, 75 “botched executions” have taken place. Botched executions occur when there is a breakdown in, or departure from, the “protocol” for a particular method of execution, according toDeath Penalty Info.
Death penalties need to be outlawed solely because botched executions still happen. Failed executions are so unjust. Again, I do not believe that criminals shouldn’t be charged, but these methods are too risky.
During a botched lethal injection attempt, criminals experience unimaginable pain during the hours following being injected. The drug injected into them, Pentobarbital, is intended to kill people, so when it’s unsuccessful, they are stuck for hours with a deadly drug circulating in their bodies.
In 2009, Ohio’s Romell Broom was sentenced to lethal injection. His attempt failed and was considered botched.
“Efforts to find a suitable vein and to execute Mr. Broom were terminated after more than two hours when the executioners were unable to find a usable vein in his arms or legs. During the failed efforts, Mr. Broom winced and grimaced with pain,” according to Death Penalty Info. “At one point, he covered his face with both hands and appeared to be sobbing, his stomach heaving.”
Statistics from Death Penalty Info report that over 120 years, 8,776 people were executed and 276 of those executions, approximately 3.15 percent, went wrong in some way. Lethal injection had the highest rate of botched executions, while electrocution had one of the least.
The punishment that is the most unjust is death by electrocution, better known as the electric chair. There have been 4,374 recorded deaths by the electric chair, 84 of them being botched.
During its use, the individual sentenced to death is securely strapped to a specifically designed wooden chair and electrocuted via strategically positioned electrodes affixed to the head and leg. Fatal electrocution is usually a result of the current passing through the body or head causing cardiac arrest or damage to vital centers in the brain according to Science Direct.
There are only eight states that authorize this method, which are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee. That is eight states too many.
In 1999 in Florida, Allen Lee Davis was executed by the electric chair.
“Before he was pronounced dead, the blood from his mouth had poured onto the collar of his white shirt, and the blood on his chest had spread to about the size of a dinner plate, even oozing through the buckle holes on the leather chest strap holding him to the chair,” according to an excerpt and others were written by Michael L. Radelet, a professor at the University of Colorado from Death Penalty Info.
While there are other forms of punishment that fall under the “death penalty” umbrella, death by lethal injection and death by electrocution are the two most renowned. Currently, 27 out of the 50 states allow the death penalty as a form of punishment.
27 states believe that these forms of punishment are OK, but they are incorrect. The death penalty needs to be outlawed in all America, and should be classified as cruel and unusual, as explained in our Eighth Amendment rights.
