Death Penalty

1. The history of the death penalty in the U.S.
The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified thedeath penalty for twenty-five different crimes. The death penalty was also part of the Fourteenth Century B.C.’s Hittite Code; in the Seventh Century B.C.’s Draconian Code of Athens, which made deaththe only punishment for all crimes; and in the Fifth Century B.C.’s Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets. Death sentences were carried out by such means as crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burningalive and impalement. In the Tenth Century A.D., hanging became the usual method of execution in Britain. In the following century, William the Conqueror would not allow people to be hanged orotherwise executed for any crime, except in times of war. This trend would not last, as in the Sixteenth Century, under the reign of Henry VIII, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed.Some common methods of execution at that time were boiling, burning at the stake, hanging, beheading, and drawing and quartering. Britain influenced America's use of the death penalty more than anyother country did. When European settlers came to the new world, they brought the practice of capital punishment. The first recorded execution in the new colonies was that of Captain George Kendall inthe Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. Kendall was executed for being a spy for Spain. In 1612, Virginia Governor Sir Thomas Dale enacted the Divine, Moral and Martial Laws, which provided thedeath penalty for even minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens and trading with Indians. Laws regarding the death penalty varied from colony to colony.
The first attempted reforms ofdeath penalty in the U.S. occurred when Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill to revise Virginia's death penalty laws. The bill proposed that capital punishment had to be used only for the crimes of...