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Abstract
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Available at: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/vol26/iss1/2
The term "Capital Punishment" encompasses any penalizing punishment that results in the death of people accused of committing a crime.1 This damnation dates back to the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the "Code of Hammurabi," a misemployed code that ensured the death penalty for twenty-five distinct crimes. People convicted of crimes were made to suffer for their actions in horrific ways, including being burnt alive and drowning.2 Since then, death by hanging has been the conventional method for capital punishment in most of the world. On the other hand, the reformative theory of punishment asserts that the object of the prison reform system ought to be the transformation of the persons convicted of a crime.3 The reformative theory depends on the humanistic rule that regardless of whether convicted persons perpetrate wrongdoing, they do not stop being people.4 The punishment is curative and leads to reformation. The application of capital punishment that is retributive in nature is the contraposition of the meaning and spirit of the reformative theory.
Countries like India, the United Kingdom. and the United States have unique legal approaches to dealing with capital punishment litigation. Although the fundamental law is the same, the "red tape" around each country's bureaucratic procedure is specific to that country. A common approach may not always be the right approach for each country to follow. However, a reformed approach is always preferred. Based on each state's existing legal superstructure, a hybrid reformed approach should be implemented. However, the death penalty should be treated differently from other forms of punishment. In Gregg v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court set a constitutional floor for the imposition of the death penalty, which cannot be "random or arbitrary."5 The U.S. Congress enacted the Federal Death Penalty Act in response, setting out procedural requirements aiming to prevent arbitrary imposition of the death penalty.6 States are permitted to set a higher floor than the Supreme Court established through their own criminal codes, and many states have abolished it outright.
By examining how the death penalty impacts people convicted of crimes and society, this Article suggests a more progressive reformative system that can replace the barbaric notion of capital punishment, protect society, and integrate people accused of crimes back into society.
Language: en |