Introduction
Death penalty refers to the killing of detained people who have been found to have committed capital crimes and this action is conducted by following court orders. Capital offenses refer to the crimes that require the death penalty for instance murder or rape. As much as the courts have the power to pass rules, they need to make decisions that are in accordance to the human rights. For this reason, criminals as much as they deserve harsh punishments for the crimes they have committed, they also have human rights which have to be protected. Death penalty is not a new thing in today’s society as it has been used in various belief systems over the decades as a method of punishing unforgivable and inhuman offenses.
In 1976, the United States Supreme Court made the death penalty constitutional hence; it could be rightfully used to address capital offenses. Texas is one of the 38 United States of America where the death penalty is authorized and is one of the states with the highest number of death row cases. In Texas, the district courts have the legal mandate to subject capital offenders to the death penalty. The death penalty in Texas is given to persons who have knowingly caused the death of others provided that there is sufficient evidence. The death penalty is accorded to men and women above 18 years of age.
When defendants are found guilty of capital offenses, they are allowed to appeal their cases at the Court of criminal appeals and if they do not succeed, they can further appeal at the U.S circuit Court and failure at this stage means that the case will be appealed at the U.S Supreme court which is the highest level of authority. At this highest level, the Texas governor has little control over the issues and his role is to give the accused a period of 30 days before they Texas Board of Paroles agrees on the way forward. The accused can also file for petition for a lesser punishment for instance life imprisonment and the Board will deliberate on the issues and suggest the way forward. There is no standard time for carrying out the executions as some have taken more than twenty years while others less than a year.
During the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, the death row detainees were hanged and later on, between the years 1924-1977 where the various counties chose the method that they thought was appropriate. The electric chair was used and the state conducted the executions. During this period, 361 prisoners were electrocuted (Texas Department of Criminal Justice). After this, in 1982, lethal injection; which slowly stops the major functions of the body, became the acceptable method and still is being used up to now. Relatives of the victims were allowed in 1996 to witness the executions in Texas.
Though the use of death penalty has helped in reducing crime in the society, people are against its use as it is viewed as unfair and unjust. This is because innocent people might be executed for crimes that they did not commit (Dow 109). Moreover, the victims close relatives will be emotionally and psychologically affected. There were constant claims that the rise in the death row cases are as a result of poor legal representation of the victims and reforms need to be made in the states laws (Amnesty international, 1998). For these reasons, several organizations like the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty are staging for the rights of prisoners so that other ways of punishing them are used. Moreover, they say that the death penalty takes up a lot of taxpayers’ money. “Furthermore in Texas there are no records on the costs of the executions (Sorensen, Pilgrim & Mandery 156).”
Conclusion
Death penalty has helped lower the crime rates in Texas but its continuous use in Texas and the rise of the people who are accused raises many questions on its practicability to fight the various vices in society. Due to the various controversies associated with the death penalty, it needs to be abolished so that other forms of punishment can be implemented. Life imprisonment is on of the avenues that can be used as it will make the Texas and the entire United States of America more civilized and respected by other nations as they will strive to enhance the value human life while upholding the rule of law.
Works Cited
Amnesty International. USA: The death penalty in Texas: lethal injustice, 1 March 1998
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/010/1998. Retrieved April 24, 2009
Dow, M. Machinery of death: The reality of America’s death penalty regime, Routledge, 2002, pp. 108-112
Sorensen, J. R., Pilgrim, R. L. ; Mandery, E. J. (2006). Lethal injection: capital punishment in Texas during the modern era. University of Texas Press, p. 156
Texas department of criminal justice. Death row statistics. Retrieved April 24, 2009 http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/drowfacts.htm
