Capital Punishment and the Constitutional Ban on Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Capital Punishment
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A brief history of capital punishment in the U.S.
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, refers to the legal killing of criminals for various criminal acts. In the United States, it traces its origin during the colonial period, when the European settlers brought it with them, and it was adopted in the 1600s. The first execution occurred in 1608 when George Kendall was killed in Virginia for being an operative for Spain (“A history of the death penalty in America,” 2012, pp. 1-2). Several more laws were enacted in the different American colonies, such as the 1612 Divine, Moral, and Martial Laws of Virginia, which imposed the death penalty for spying, murder, minor offenses of stealing grapes, commercing with Indians, and killing chickens. The Massachusetts Bay Colony instituted execution in 1630, New England in 1631, and the New York colony in 1665. During this era, the execution was conducted through public hanging, shooting, electrocution, poison gas, and lethal injection, which is utilized to date (“A history of the death penalty in America,” 2012, pp. 2-3).
As the different laws on execution continued to be adopted, the movement to abolish the death penalty started to develop. The 1794 law in Pennsylvania became the first legal restriction to the use the punishment only for first-degree murder and outlawed public executions in 1834. Many more states opposed the death penalty in the 1800s, such as Michigan in 1845, Wisconsin in 1848, and Rhode Island in 1853. In the 1900s, more states such as Minnesota, Vermont, Iowa, West Virginia, Hawai, Alaska, and North Dakota also abolished it by 1957 (“A history of the death penalty in America,” 2012, pp. 2-3).
By the 1960s, public protest against capital punishment increased with several cases filed in the Supreme Court to determine whether the punishment observed the constitution. In the Furman v. Georgia case of 1972, the Supreme Court outlawed the use of the punishment in several consolidated cases, citing inconsistencies in its application, racial discrimination, and an infringement of the 8th Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment (Latzer, 2010, pp. 37-39). The ruling saw a halt on all executions, with life sentences replacing them. In 1976, thirty-seven states drew up new death penalty statutes to conform to the 1972 ruling by only punishing certain forms of murder convictions.
In Gregg v. Georgia of 1976, the Supreme Court validated the use of the punishment but if the guilt-innocence trial and sentencing phase were carried out separately. The affirmation of capital punishment saw its resumption in 1977, with the execution of Gary Gilmore and more than 1500 people executed to date (Latzer, 2010, pp. 67-75). The 1980s to 2000 saw several rulings define the parameters of the death penalty use, such as barring of its use for the rape of an adult woman in Cooker v. Georgia of 1977. Godfrey v. Georgia of 1980 invoked its use only on murder convictions with aggravating factors, Roper v. Simmons of 2005 outlawed the execution of minors, while Kennedy v. Lousiana of 2008 termed it use unconstitutional for other crimes oth...