Abolishing The Death Penalty In The United States

“My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I'm killing somebody.” This quotation by Steve Earle, an American rock and folk singer, really speaks to the way the death penalty is looked at, by the government, in the states today. States today, have a completely different viewpoint than in the past years. 50 years ago abolishing the death penalty seemed to be a topic that had been done by a few states but was also barely a thought by others. In today's more progressive minded America, states are trying to get rid of the death penalty for good. With the help of previous states rulings and the various groups and political parties …show more content…
This was a landmark ruling by the state legislature, with the vote of the people. The one thing that made Michigan not the first state to totally abolish the death penalty is the fact that capital punishment was still legal when the criminal committed the act of treason. In 1852, after considering the Michigan ruling, Rhode Island became the actual first state to abolish the death penalty in all means of crime. (Steiker 360) These two states did not know it at the time, but they played a huge role in the rethinking of the death penalty in states now a days. These states have held precedence for the past three states to abolish the death penalty: Connecticut, Maryland, and Nebraska. Connecticut was a colonial state that has had the death penalty for an extremely long time but in 2009, the Connecticut legislature passed a bill that would have abolished all forms of the death penalty in the state. The bill was then quickly vetoed by the then governor, Jodi Rell. This idea remained in the people’s and legislatures’ minds until it passed again in 2012. This time Connecticut passed a bill that said the death penalty would be abolished for all future crime committed. There were 11 men on death row in the state and the Connecticut Supreme Court found that this violated the state constitution so all of the men were then given life sentences without parole. (Barry 1853-1856) Just like Connecticut, Maryland has had the death penalty since the late 1700’s. At the end of the 80’s Maryland passed to laws into action that abolished execution for the juveniles and the mentally unstable. In 2002, the governor at the time, Parris Glendening, set a moratorium on the death penalty, this was then lifted by his successor. In 2009, Maryland almost passed the abolition of the death penalty but they did get the strictest set of death penalty restrictions

Show More

Abolishing The Death Penalty In The United States