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To Kill A Mockingbird Capital Punishment Essay

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Capital Punishment and To Kill A Mockingbird Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the lawful infliction of death as a punishment for a crime. Capital punishment could be carried out in five possible ways: electrocution, hanging, lethal injection, gas chamber, and firing squad. In 1790 the first congress decided to use capital punishment for the crimes of: rape, murder, robbery, and forgery of public securities. This method of punishment is still used throughout the united states despite the controversy over it merits and its effectiveness as a deterrent to a serious crime. The first known use of the death penalty in the American colonies happened in 1608, in the colony of Jamestown. During the Revolutionary War capital punishment was very …show more content…

The state of Florida alone pays $525 for undertaker’s services and coffin, $150 for the inmate’s burial, and $20 for the inmate's last meal. It costs $70,000 for a mandatory review from the state supreme court on all death penalty sentences. It costs $20,000 a year to keep an inmate in their cell when on death row. For an inmate on a life sentence it cost $25,000 to keep the inmate in their cell. Based on a sentence of 40-45 years, an inmate would cost the taxpayer more than $1 million dollars, this cost is less than a third of what it would cost to put an inmate through capital punishment. A study on capital punishment, by professor David C. Baldus, was published in 1983 showing the statistics of racial bias within capital punishment. This study showed that between 1973-1979 killers whose victims were white were eleven times more likely to be put on death row than killers whose victims were black. Many other studies have shown equal numbers when involving the system’s treatment of black and white. Between 1976-1995 245 convicts were executed. 84% of their victims were white, although less than 50% of all murder victims were

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