What is the death penilty?

Answer 1

The death penalty is punishment for committing a "capital offense", such as murder or treason, where the government having jurisdiction over the crime and the criminal puts the person convicted of the crime to death. The method used in most jurisdictions today is that of lethal injection, where a number of drugs are injected into the person to sedate and then cause death. Many states have abolished it, believing it to be cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution, even though the US Supreme Court has ruled that it is not provided that it is administered effectively with as little pain as posssible and not in any racially discriminatory manner. Over the years in the US there have been many methods of imposing the death penalty from the firing squad to the hangman's noose to the electric chair to the gas chamber to lethal injection. It makes a person wonder why, if the death penalty is not cruel, do we keep looking for ways to make it easier on the person being executed.

Answer 2

Capital punishment is the death penalty for a criminal offense. Death sentences may be carried out by hanging, firing squad, electrocution, gas chamber, lethal injection, or other forms of execution as prescribed by law. Many countries, especially in Europe, no longer have a death penalty, and in others the sentence is reserved for crimes of a violent or heinous nature.

(For lists of countries, see the related question.)
death

Answer 3

Theoretically, the death penalty serves many uses in our society:

1. It acts as the ultimate in general deterrence, inasmuch as it is hoped that through its imposition, others will take note of its severity and will be effectively deterred from committing crimes that fall within its purview. Note that this differs from specific deterrence (i.e., that which is meant to deter a particular offender from repeating a particular crime); obviously, if a person is executed for having committed a crime, he will not be able to commit that crime again because he has lost his life.
2. It serves as the ultimate punishment (hence, "capital punishment") in that it is not intended to serve as a deterrent for the offender.
3. It is also the ultimate in incapacitation in that the offender is permanently removed from society, forever safe from the actions of this one individual.
4. Last, it is the ultimate in retributive justice; there is no greater revenge we as a society can mete out against an individuall.

Despite these numerous roles, the death penalty has been the focus of an ongoing debate in the U.S. over concerns that it is, for the most part, a punishment that is both cruel and unusual. Moreover, research has shown that, in the U.S., young black men are more likely to be sentenced to death for a capital offense than any other racial/ethic group, and, that the number of black men who have either been executed, or are awaiting execution is disproportionate to their numbers in society.

Answer 4

Death penalty means that you are to die by either the electric chair or lethal injection for crimes. Major crimes as murder

Answer 5

Death penalty means just what it says. For a capital crime, the death penalty can be imposed. Most of them specify the type of death that can be imposed.

Answer 6

The death penalty is another word for capital punishment and execution. In other words, putting a condemned person to death.

Answer 7

Death penalty or Capital Punishment. It is a legal procedure in which the state puts a person to death as a punishment for his crime.

Answer 8

Death penalty is when someone did a serious crime