Lethal Injection as the Solution

Capital punishment has been practiced in the United States for years. It serves as punishment for the most serious crimes committed; so, it follows that the methods employed in order to punish these sometimes-dangerous criminals must fit the crime committed; however, who has the responsibility of deciding whether or not the methods used in order to punish these criminals are humane? We do. Should committing a crime deprive a person from his or her basic rights and liberties? Of course not. Does torturing a person in a gas chamber truly teach them a lesson about the crime they have committed? Not necessarily. Are these criminals excluded from the constitutional protection against “cruel and unusual punishment?” Definetly not!
Keeping these questions in mind, the debate over whether or not the methods of execution involve the failure to adhere to the constitutional protection against “cruel and unusual punishment” will continue as long as the death penalty is used as punishment for crime. In Furman v. Georgia, the court ruled that the death penalty was “cruel and unusual punishment; however, in the ruling of Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court overturned its previous decision and declared that the death penalty does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment." Clearly, even the US Supreme Court has wavered on the issue of whether or not the death penalty itself is humane; therefore, it logically follows that the methods used for executions have also been constantly questioned. So, what measures must be taken in order to terminate this debate? The termination of the death penalty as punishment seems to provide one possible solution; however, his would require a drastic transformation in the US judicial system. This would then create the problem of how the most serious legal offenses should be punished.
I personally feel that though this problem has no straightforward solution, measures should be taken in order to make the death penalty as humane as possible. Compared to methods such as gas chambers and electric chairs, lethal injection provides a slightly more humane method of killing. Each state, at this point, sets its own standards as far as who receives the death penalty, and it is left upon each state to determine which method they will use. I feel like as far as the ethical aspects of capital punishment are concerned, lethal injection provides the best solution to this debate. Though this would be the ideal solution, I do not see this solution actually being put into practice. Debating the issue of the humaneness of the methods of execution used in the United States is an issue that requires us to first deal with other issues closely correlated with it such as the inherent bias present in the conviction of criminals to the death penalty in the first place.