Essay: Capital Punishment in the Mid Twentieth Century

Sample Essay

Words 1,320

This essay discusses capital punishment in the Mid Twentieth Century. As an outcome of World War II, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This 1948 doctrine proclaimed a “right to life” in an unconditional manner, any restrictions being only implied. Knowing that international abolition of the death penalty was not yet a practical goal the United Nations shifted its focal point to restraining the scope of the death penalty to shield juveniles, pregnant women, and the elderly.

As an outcome of World War II, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This 1948 doctrine proclaimed a “right to life” in an unconditional manner, any restrictions being only implied. Knowing that international abolition of the death penalty was not yet a practical goal the United Nations shifted its focal point to restraining the scope of the death penalty to shield juveniles, pregnant women, and the elderly.

In the 1950s, public sentiment began to turn away from capital punishment. Many allied nations either stop or limited the death penalty, and in the U.S., the number of executions dropped noticeably. Whereas there were 1,289 executions in the 1940s, there were 715 in the 1950s, and the number fell even further, to only 191, from 1960 to 1976. In 1966, support for capital punishment stretch to an all-time low.

The 1960s brought challenges to the fundamental legality of the death penalty. Before then, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments were read as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a “cruel and unusual” punishment, and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.

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