Legal executions in Californian were authorized under the criminal practice act of 1851. On Feb. 14, 1872 capital punishment was incorporated into the penal code. In 1937, the legislature provided that lethal gas replace hanging with August 27, 1937 as the effective date. The only lethal gas chamber in the state was constructed at San Quentin. The first execution by lethal gas was conducted December 2, 1938. From that date through 1967 a total of 194 persons were executed by gas, all at San Quentin. This total includes four women.
For 25 years after 1967 there were no executions in California due to various state and United States Supreme Court decisions. In 1972 the California Supreme Court found that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the state constitution. As a result 107 individuals had their sentences changed to other than death. In November 1972, nine months after the decision, the California electorate amended that state constitution and overruled the state supreme court. The California State legislature re-enacted the death penalty statue in 1977.
Under the new statue, evidence in mitigation was permitted. In January 1993, a new law went into effect allowing inmates to choose lethal injection or lethal gas as the method of execution. In October 1994, an U. S. District Judge, Northern District (San Francisco) ruled that the gas chamber was cruel and unusual punishment, barring the state from using that method of execution. (State) This clearly permits the death penalty to be imposed and establishes beyond doubt that the death penalty is not one of the cruel and unusual punishments prohibited by the Eighth amendment.
Scalia) When the nation was younger, criminal routinely were put to death in public. Now, state prison officials and news media representives are locked in a fight over just how public todays death row executions should be. News media groups in California contend that have a constitution right to witness executions in their entirety. But state officials have won court permission to bar reporters and the public until moments before poison is pumped into a condemned inmates veins.
A federal appeals court recently ruled that California officials could bar the public and press while preparing inmates for death. The process takes about 20 minutes and includes strapping inmates onto a gurney and inserting tubes into the condemned inmates veins that will carry the lethal drugs. (Carelli) The 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the public and news media have little-if any-constitutional right to see an execution, although the judges stopped short of saying whether a state could bar reporters from executions altogether.
Associated Press) Regardless of where you stand on capital punishment, lets not kid ourselves: killing convicted killers is not so much about justice or public safety as revenge. It is societys way of saying that the good guys have the final word. For many of us, it is a comforting self-deception. In the face of fear and terror that murder conjures up, we are still in control. The death ritual is the ultimate exercise of government authority: A condemned killer, flanked by guards inside a high-security prison is strapped onto a gurney.
An IV that will carry the lethal chemicals is inserted into his vein. The evil killer has no way out. Society is completely in command. (Berlow) Opponents of capital punishment for years contended that televising executions would erode the American publics overwhelming support for the death penalty. Those who support the death penalty disagree. The televising would bring about no lasting change. There would be a big tabloid TV splash the first time, but the shock value would quickly fade. It would become ordinary.
There is no conclusive statistical demonstration that the death penalty is a better deterrent than are alternative punishments. Deterrence is less than decisive is less decisive for either side. (Baldus and Cole). We threaten punishments in order to deter crime. We impose them not only to make the threats credible but also as retribution (justice) foe the crimes that were not deterred. Threats and punishments are necessary to deter and deterrence is a sufficient practical justification for them.
Retribution is an independent moral justification. Some men, probably, abstain from murder because they committed murder they would be hanged. Hundreds of thousands abstain from it because the regard it with horror. One great reason why the regard it with horror is that murderers are hanged. (Fitzjames) Punishments are imposed on a person, not on racial or economic groups. Guilt is personal. The only relevant question is: does the person to be executed deserve the punishment?
Whether or not others who deserved punishment, whatever their economic or racial group, have avoided executions is irrevelevant. (Douglas) By committing the crime, the criminal volunteers to assume the risk of receiving a legal punishment that they could have avoided, by not committing the crime. The punishment the criminal suffers is the punishment they voluntarily risked suffering, and therefore, it is no more unjust to them than any other event for which one knowingly volunteers to assume the risk. Therefore, the death penalty cannot be unjust to the guilty criminal.
