This assignment touches on the history of death penalty in the U.S and the current practice.
The death penalty is also known as capital punishment. It is the legal execution of a criminal. In the old times, beheading was the best-known form of capital punishment but this practice has never happened in the United States. Instead, criminals have received the death sentence by shooting, electrocution, hanging and lethal injection.
Today, every state that still has death penalty use lethal injection even though others give an option of the other options mentioned above. Legal executions in America started as early as 1630.
In the past, in America and England capital offenses were many including pickpocketing or even stealing a loaf of bread. But since the number of capital offenses has reduced until now America has its main focus on first-degree murder which means that it was a murder that shows deliberation, premeditation, and willfulness.
The execution was also moved within prisons’ walls to eliminate the public from witnessing such executions (Bohm, 2016).
