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Death Penalty in the U.S. Context

This photo was taken on June 30, 2006 using a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT.

Thirty-eight states have the death penalty in their law books. Illinois have a moratorium regarding the practice of the capital punishment, enacted by former governor George Ryan. Former President George W. Bush, who had been a governor of Texas, presided over a total of 153 executions, making his state the leader in carrying out the death penalty. The Supreme Court, in 1972, declared the death penalty to be unconstitutional and emptied the death rows all over the country, but when each state re-drafted their laws, capital punishment was once again re-instituted in 1976.

Death Penalty of Mentally Retarded and Juvenile

In June 2002, the court declared that sentencing of mentally retarded persons to death as unconstitutional.  In the summer of 2009, the court ordered that the authority to impose the death penalty should be carried out by the juries, not the judges. In January this year, the court refused to review the constitutionality of sentencing juvenile offenders to death. As of the moment, there are 80 or more juvenile offenders sentenced to capital punishment, including one who was allowed to represent himself in court while he was only 16 years old.

Gender Bias Of The Capital Punishment

The gender bias of the capital punishment, as well as it’s racial and class bias, is considered as the savior of the lives of women. The problem lies in the reason for saving their lives. Prosecution regard women as docile, less threatening but unstable when it comes to emotions. A woman killing or maiming a person is seen as results of loyalty or blind love for a man. This supports the notion about the weakness of a woman and how they are in need of guidance, protection and control from a man.

This denies them of any moral or social responsibility over the control of their actions, making it easier to marginalize women. This double-standard on gender has raised protests from condemned men, anti-death penalty groups and feminists with an argument that, “that gender, just as race and wealth, should play no role in determining who lives and who dies in the nation’s death chambers”. However, this argument means nothing if it will be compared to racial bias as a reason to remove the death penalty.

Gender Bias Promotes Stereotype

Even if more women will be given the capital punishment and executed as fast as their gender counterpart, it will not make this form of punishment as fair or less barbaric. While gender bias promotes a stereotype of a female being the victim and male always becomes the protector, it still encourages hope that prosecution, judges and juries will put fairness in the law and human compassion before the desire to kill legally. That should be the case, whether the accused sentenced to die is a man or a woman, a child or an adult, regardless of color or race.

References:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/23/AR2010092306866.html

http://wings.buffalo.edu/law/bclc/bclrarticles/4%282%29/crockerpdf.pdf

October 29, 2010 - Posted by hunter murphy | Society | death penalty, Death Penalty in the U.S. Context, Gender Bias Of The Capital Punishment, Gender Bias Promotes Stereotype