Independence of clearly states that all men are born and are to be treated equal. But how constitutional is it to take the life or spare the life of a human because of their skin color, it’s very unconstitutional. And the final piece of text I will be using is the sociological article The Death Penalty: An Unusual Punishment America is Inflicting upon itself written by Stephanie Boys which explains to us how the United States is the only Western, industrialized nation still executing criminal offenders. The most important aspect of this article is that it explains how the 8th amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, makes the use of the death penalty an illegal act. Writing pieces and sociological sources such as the pieces shown above show us as sociologist and as people why the death penalty death penalty is a heinous, unlawful practice that should be made illegal.
I am a firm believer that the United States justice system is a reliable and highly effective justice system but as people we must realize that the justice system is not perfect for the simple fact that while on trial we are found innocent or guilty by a jury of our peers who are people who have biased and different prejudice thoughts and opinions. When on trial, not only is the freedom of a defendant on the line, with the death penalty it also puts their life’s on the line. One case of where a person wrongfully lost their life to the death penalty was in the case of Claude Howard Jones. Mr. Jones was executed in 2000 for the 1989 killing of a liquor store owner near Point Blank but after the investigation was reopened, a DNA test showed that a hair that had linked him to the crime scene did not belong to him. In this case, not only did an innocent man wrongfully spend many years of his life in a prison cell, but his life was wrongfully taken because our “impartial” justice system allowed the death penalty to take this innocent man’s life. Not only did the law of the land fail to...