Capital Punishment

Introduction to Criminal Justice

Capital Punishment- State of California v Texas

May 27, 2014

Section # 40268 ONLINE

Dr. Oliver M. Thompson

Michael Ellis

Student I.D.# 2458100

(951)675-0107

michaelellis212@gmail.com

The state of California has become much more conservative over the years. One of the big issues now is capital and whether or not it falls under cruel and unusual punishment and if benefit outweighs the cost. In my own personal opinion, if a person has committed a crime serious enough to make it to the death penalty, then executing them is not cruel and unusual. I believe in an eye for an eye. California’s judicial system, however, does not feel the same way. In one of the articles, it says that Californians vote 2 to 1 in favor of the death penalty but that only 13 people have actually been executed in the last three decades.

One of the problems is that none of the lawyers want to handle a capital punishment case. In some cases, an inmate spends five years in jail before ever even being able to go to his first trial. There are several hundred people that are on death row in California today, but because it costs too much money to update the facilities for the death penalty, they just leave the people in prison until they die. To me, if they would just execute in a timely manner, they would save money because they would no longer be supporting the inmates. The inmate had no recollection of cruel and unusual punishment went they went and did whatever they did when they got put on death row, so California should not feel obligated to use the cruel and unusual punishment when it comes to the death penalty.

Texas is the complete opposite of California. They execute more people every year than any other state in America. They do not sentence as many people as most of the other states but they have a much higher execution rate. One of the first reasons is because judges are elected and are for the public when it comes to opinions on a subject....