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Capital Punishment : The Death Penalty

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Death Penalty
Capital punishment is the act of executing a person, who was found guilty of a serious crime. Executions are the ultimate punishment for a crime, because there is no abolition from death. The logical alternative is life in prison without parole, yet a lot of nations still perform the death penalty. The debate whether capital punishment is ethical/justifiable is still widely disputed. Although it is considered unethical, capital punishment serves as one of the most vital yet controversial subjects today. It is evident that the death penalty should be supported and enforced by the government due to

Capital Punishment The
History of Capital Punishment
Understanding the history behind capital punishment helps illustrate why the issue is so divisive. The death penalty is nothing new to our society and has been in effect for ages. According to PBS, in the 18th Century BC, the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon codified the death penalty for twenty five different crimes, although murder was not one of them. The first death sentence historically recorded, occurred in 16th Century BC Egypt where the criminal, a member of nobility, was accused of magic and ordered to take his own life. The first recorded execution in the English American colonies was in 1608 when officials executed George Kendall of Virginia for supposedly plotting to betray the British to the Spanish. Some colonies were very strict in their use of the death penalty, while others were less so. In 1612,

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