The Death Penalty
Capital punishment is not a new concept to society. Both the Greeks and the Romans used the death penalty for a variety of offenses, from murder all the way down to petty theft. Socrates and Jesus are probably the most famous people ever killed for a crime in the ancient period. Hammurabi, a king of ancient Babylonia, made a code of laws that dates back from the second or third millennium before Christ. This code claimed that "an eye for an eye and a life for a life" was justice. Romans 13 in the Bible implies that it is the responsibility of those who God has appointed in charge to punish offenders for the sake of preserving social order for all of the people. In 1972 the case of Furman vs. Georgia declared that the death penalty was unconstitutional and that it violated the Eighth amendment, stating that it was cruel and unusual punishment, of course, the only methods of execution at the time were hanging, electrocution, and facing a firing squad.......
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