Two-thirds of the world’s nations have abolished the death penalty since they abolished it in more than thirty years. Thirty-five United States, including the federal government and the military, still use the death penalty in the form of capital punishment (Death Penalty Act 2009). Although many countries and fifteen US states have abolished the use of the death penalty as a criminal penalty, the state of Indiana still has the death penalty written into its statutes.
In Indiana records US Supreme Court Cases, such as Furman v. Georgia and Woodson v.North Carolina statutory amendments . There are still issues such as inequality in punishments of race and gender in punishments, the high cost of having the death penalty and possible. the lack of murder in Indiana even with the death penalty as a deterrent. Indiana is ahead of the US Supreme Court in reviewing statutes that do not allow the execution of mental retardation. men or children before it was ruled by the U. S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons. However, unconstitutional aspects are still recognized within the statute.
Furman v. Georgia is not only a huge turning point in the case law history of the Indiana Statute, but for all the death penalty laws in America. In 1972, William Furman, a man in his twenties black, broke into the Mickes house at night. William Micke, thinking that the boy had woken up, went to see what was going on. While trying to run from home, Furman shot Micke in the chest. Despite his recklessness, Furman was convicted and sentenced to capital murder. He received the sentence of death (Fabricius 64-65). In the US Supreme Court, the jury ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional under the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. It is regulated that it is allowed for the arbitrary and/or light imposition of death and it has become a risk unnecessary things, such as gender, could affect the period of decision. In Indiana, after the government, seven people who were on death row were all reduced to life in prison (INDP Facts 1).
The following year the Indiana General Assembly passed a new death penalty statute to replace the old one. Three years after Woodson v.North Carolina. This case was particularly interesting because North Carolina had changed its statute from death or life to murder. of those who commit murder, a sentence of punishment must be made. The syllabus for the US Supreme Court case shows part of the reason for the dissent of the statute: “The opinion is no longer valid, that every crime in a similar category the law demands equal punishment without regard to the past life and habits of any offender” (Woodson v North Carolina). They did not agree that the issues of the sentence had not been changed or clarified, nor should mitigating or aggravating factors be considered. Also, the periods of the proper sentence cannot be completed if death is to be done, the accused due process would not receive his family. Hence against the eighth and fourteenth amendments. Because of the similarity of the North Carolina statute to the revised Indiana statute, Indiana sought to revise the statute when the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in 1973. Condemnation status in the US Supreme Court decision (INDP Case I).
Indiana’s death penalty sentencing statute has been revised over time. It currently states that the death penalty is available only for murder (IC 35-50-2-9). “A citizen may seek a sentence of death or a sentence of life in prison without conviction for murder by alleging, on a separate page from the rest of the reporting instrument, the existence of at least one aggravating circumstance listed…” (IC 35-50-2-9 a). This must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. But there is no other way to proceed against the defendant under these laws if the defendant is mentally retarded. If the defendant is not mentally retarded and is found to have committed murder with aggravating circumstances (some are listed: arson, burglary, decreasing the crime. /a>) circumstances. To death or life without faith they are allowed to be convicted, unless there is a unanimous verdict that some aggravating circumstance is proved and mitigating circumstances outweigh.
In addition to the mitigating factors listed in the Indiana statute, the defendant has no significant criminal history, was under the influence of emotion or mental disorder, was aware at the time of the crime, was under the control of another person and was under eighteen years of age. If the victim was an accomplice that could also be seen as a mitigating factor (IC 35-50-2c). Aggravating and mitigating factors became important in Indian law, especially after Furman v. Georgia‘s stated that state statutes need amendments and states must consider all mitigating and aggravating evidence before sentencing a person to death. .
If the defendant is sentenced to death, three types of appeals can be admitted. The defendant must make a direct appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court to address the legal issues. He can also choose a post-conviction status review for scientific questions (whether the defendant was well represented or testified) or federal habeas corpus review which is involved in the constitution of the trial (INDP Facts 2).
Many changes by the Indiana General Assembly over the years have attempted to overhaul the state’s year-round process in capital punishment trials. In 1989, they created the Indian Public Defender Commission. This delegation was responsible for setting standards for appointing and paying attorneys for defendants facing the death penalty. Here they promised to give the county half of their expenses for the defense of the representation of the defendant (INDP Facts 3). Only four years after the election, he confirmed life without parole as a sentencing option for capital murder. In 1994, prosecutors were given the ability to request a life sentence without parole for death in capital murder cases (INDP Facts 3). The decision to make life without conviction an unlikely option has made it even more difficult for defendants to be sentenced to death since many people, including judges and prosecutors, may be anti-death penalty.
On the list of the death penalty for killing people, the Indiana group fell a few years before the Supreme Court. Indiana had the death penalty for anyone 10 years or older until it was changed to 16 years or older in 1987. Indiana raised death penalty eligibility to 18 in 2002, three years before the US ruling on executing children came out. to go out Roper v Simmons, a 2005 case, made it unconstitutional to execute defendants under the age of 18 at the time their crime was committed. The reason was because they were considered “cruel and unusual” and in that age they have a reduced metal capacity, making them less morally reprehensible (INDP Facts 3).
In 1994, the General Assembly of Indiana decriminalized both death and life without faith in mentally retarded persons. Not until eight hundred years later in Atkins v. Virginia‘s US Supreme Court case ruled that no execution of mentally retarded persons was a violation of the 8th< /sup> Amendment’s “cruel and unusual” clause (Walker 230). This is because they are less culpable because of their diminished mental faculties. Although Indiana still has the death penalty, it is clear that they have changed the list of persons eligible for execution even before the US Supreme Court.
Although the state of Indiana has made many amendments to its statutes to ensure equality for all, there still seems to be inequality in the system. For example, from 1977 to July 1, 2007, 95.7% of convicted criminals were male, only 4.3% were female (INDR Stats 2). Whites made up the bulk of all criminals (66.7%), while blacks were 31.2% and Hispanics 2.2% were executed ON death row this thirty-year period (INDR Stats 2). Although this appears to be more balanced in terms of population than other states, in reality blacks are only 9% of the population in the city (U.S. Census 2007). It may be assumed that the decision is not racially equal based on these statistics. With respect to victims, a study conducted by Governor O’Bannon in 2002 found that criminals who killed white victims killed Six times more likely to receive the death penalty than killers of non-white victims (INDP Facts 9). This confirms the right of the IICACP, the Indiana Information Center on the abolition of capital punishment. They exist to “expose injustices with the application of the death penalty in Indiana” (IICACP). The injustices exposed by these statistics indicate racial and gender discrimination. Women in death and in comparison to the Indian black demographic population are usually not many condemned; sentenced to death
The Death Penalty Information Center State by State Information has Indiana with 131 executions before 1976, and only 19 since 1976. These numbers place them as the 24th most murders from 1608-1976 out of all fifty. states Although they are not at either end of the spectrum, they have only one less execution before 1976 than Oklahoma, which took 23rd place (DPIC Executions in the US 1). In comparison to executions from 1976-2009, Indiana falls about the same place, but it was the first time in 350 years, and they had nineteen executions within the past thirty-three years.
A study created for Indiana Governor O’Bannon in 2002 showed that the cost of prosecuting a murder defendant is 30-37.5% more than the cost of a non-capital prosecution, appeals and prison life (INDP Item 8). It was found that “The cost of a death penalty trial and direct appeal is more than five times the cost of life without conviction in a direct trial and appeal” (INDP Item 8). The Death Penalty Information Center released about the same statistic from Indiana. The total costs of the death penalty without parole exceed the costs of full life sentences by 38%, if 20% of death sentences are overturned and later reduced to life (DPIC 4). Even with all of this information on the greatest costs of having the death penalty as a form of punishment, Indiana still uses the death penalty even without reason to deter.
Part of this could come from bringing the roots of the United States Air Force back to England. The first American execution took place in Virginia in 1608. This punishment was transferred because the Americans started as English colonists and in England they always used the death penalty for their criminals (Walker 46). The constitution allowed the death penalty for criminals who committed serious crimes (Walker 46). Although the methods and regulations have changed over time, the standards are the same. Since this death penalty is one of our models and roots in building America, it has been difficult for many states to ban its use.
In the state of Indiana, there has not been much recent legislative action related to the death penalty. Judge Hawkins, a magistrate judge in Indianapolis, overruled the death penalty statute in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000). He argued that state statute denied death row inmate Charles Barker his right to be tried by jury and left the option of a death sentence pending a penalty hearing. In the Apprentice case, the United States Supreme Court said that any fact, other than preliminary convictions, which increases the penalty beyond the maximum prescribed, must be presented to the jury and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In Indiana, the jury makes a recommendation to the judge, who convicts the defendant. Hawkins ruled that it violates State Learning because a jury may impose a sentence of death even if the jury fails to find the existence of an aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt (Act of Laws – Indiana). These are still to be reviewed or reconsidered in the General Assembly.
The four main purposes, according to Thomas Walker in Eligible for Execution: The Narrative of the Daryl Atkins Case, are the death penalty, justice, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation (Walker 48-50). When justice, rehabilitation and incapacitation are questioned whether it is good through the death penalty, deterrence comes especially in Indiana. From 1990 through 2000, the FBI reported 4,617 murders across the state of Indiana. The death penalty was sought by only 153 of the prosecuting attorneys in the state, only 48 went to a capital trial and only 25 actually obtained death sentences (INDP Facts 4-5). This is evidence that it is difficult to deter crime in Indiana through the death penalty. In 1999, the average homicide rate per 100,000 people was 5.5 in states that had the death penalty, and it was only 3.6 per 100,000 in states without the death penalty. India’s homicide rate was 6.6 per 100,000 (INDP Facts 7). This murder was not deterred by the assumption, especially in India, of the death penalty.
Therefore, Indiana is ahead of the games when it comes to cutting groups from the execution of the eligibility pool. There is a long way to go in revising the statutes and making the eligibility and eligibility process feel fair to all. Supreme American cases, such as Furman v. Georgia and Woodson v. North Carolina‘s amendments affected the statute. Some recent legislative guidelines show that statutes remain unconstitutional in accordance with recent judicial guidelines (such as the Apprentice case). With the greatest costs and the possibility of deterrence, they have kept the death penalty odd. The English roots are embedded in the discovery of the United States, which is the most likely reason as the Indian states that he cannot let her go. The death penalty is part of our history.
Works cited
“Executions in the United States, 1608-1976, By State.” Death Penalty Information 2009
Death Penalty Information Center 25 April 2009
“Speech on the Death Penalty.” Death Penalty Information Center 17 April 2009. Apr. 25
2009
“Indiana.” State and County Quick Matters US Census Bureau. 2007. Apr. 25 2009.//quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/18000.html>.
“Indian Code 35.50-2.” Official Website of the State of Indiana. Office of the Code Revision of the Indiana Laws Agency. 16 Feb. 2009. Apr. 25 2009
“Indiana Death Row Inmates.” Official Website of the State of India. 2 Jan 2009. Apr. 25
2009.
“Indiana Death Row Statistics (As of July 1, 2007).” Death penalty Clark County
Prosecuting Attorney. July 1 2007. Apr. 25 2009. abbrv: INDR Stats
“Indian Death Penalty Made.” Official Website of the State of Indiana. 2 Jan 2009. Apr. 25 2009. 1-10. abbrev. INDP Facts
Indian Information Center on the Abolition of Capital Punishment (IICACP). 2009. 25 Apr. 2009.
“Legal Action – Indiana.” Death Punishment Infomation Center. 2009. 25 Apr 2009..
“On State Information”. Death Penalty Information 2009. Death Penalty Information
A hundred 25 April 2009
Walker, Thomas G. Eligible for Execution: The Story of the Daryl Atkins Case. Washington DC: CQ Press. 2009
“Woodson v. North Carolina (No. 75-5491).” Supreme Court Collection. Cornell University Law School. 1976. Apr. 25 2009._0428_0280_ZS.html>
Note: The criminal statutes are both from the Maryland Library and the exact same statutes were in the official Indiana State Library. I gave photocopies of the copies from the law library, but I didn’t make the two copies, so the charges are kept online by the Legislative Revision Agency of the Indiana Code Revision Office.
