Major Writing #1

BreAnna Montoya

July 7, 2014

Mrs. Kamri Goff

Major Writing Assignment #1

Davis, Nathan (2011) Viewpoint: Death penalty should be abolished. http://www.wsusignpost.com/2011/09/22/viewpoint-12-5699#.U7tI8JUg_IU.

This article is following a controversial execution of a man in Georgia in 2011. The article sates that a lot of people who were on death row, are being exonerated due to advances in technology and evidence. Most people think the death penalty should be abolished. The article references the ALCU which thinks the death penalty has no place in a civilized country. The article is not saying that opposing the death penalty doesn’t mean that you would deny conviced murders of punishment, it means people think there could be something else that they could do.

Ellsworth, P. C. and Gross, S. R. (1994), Hardening of the Attitudes: Americans' Views on the Death Penalty. Journal of Social Issues, 50: 19–52. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1994.tb02409.x 

This article states that the death penalty support has increased since 1966, which was when supporters were outnumbered by opponents. In the 1990’s the support was at a record high. Research has determined that most peoples attitudes towards the death penalty are based on emotion rather than information or rational argument. Death penalty support has risen for most of the major felonies. No matter what someone’s stance may be, most still oppose the death penalty for the mentally retarded.

Cohn, Steven F. Barkan, Steven E. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency May 1994 vol. 31 no. 2 202-209 http://jrc.sagepub.com/content/31/2/202.short 

This article states that whites more than blacks support the death penalty. There has been little research to investigate this difference. There is data from the 1990 General society survey that states whites supported the punishment as its associated with prejudice against blacks.

Donohue, John and Justin J. Wolfers. "The Death Penalty: No Evidence For Deterrence," The Economists' Voice, 2006, v3(5,Apr), Article 3. http://www.nber.org/papers/w11982

This article talks about whether or not the death penalty saves lives. There has been some recent interest, at this time in 2006, as there were lots of papers written during that time and currently. The article assesses the time series evidence, comparing the homicides and executions in the US and Canada and within the US between executing and non-executing states. It analyzes the judicial experiments, and the execution and homicide rates since 1934.

Naci Mocan & Kaj Gittings, 2010. "The Impact of Incentives on Human Behavior: Can We Make it Disappear? The Case of the Death Penalty," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons for and from Latin America, pages 379-418 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. http://www.nber.org/papers/w12631

This article states that decades of research shows that criminal behavior responds to incentives, non-economists think that humans are not rational enough to make decisions about benefits engaging in crime. The article also states that research should not be driven by personal beliefs. It states that Mocan and Gittings provide evidence that people react to incentives induced by capital punishment. Research found that the deterrent effect of the death penalty show strong feelings which could be due to political, ideological, religious or personal beliefs. The article also states do not mean that capital punishment is good or bad.

Isaac Ehrlich 1975 The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death American Economic Review, vol. 65 no. 3, June 1975. http://www.nber.org/papers/w0018

This article talks the legitimacy or propriety of the death penalty which is an argument that can be as old as the death penalty itself, which also includes completely abolishing it. The philosophical and moral arguments, whether they be for or against it, have remain unchanged since the beginning of the debate. There is one issue that has been outstanding is the subject of increased investigation; due to the objective nature and dominant role it has played in shaping the cases against the death penalty.

Donohue, John and Justin J. Wolfers. "The Death Penalty: No Evidence For Deterrence," The Economists' Voice, 2006, v3(5,Apr), Article 3. http://www.nber.org/papers/w11982 .

This article talks about whether or not the death penalty saves lives. There have been multiple papers on this issue showing substantial deterrent of effect of capital punishment. There are various approaches that have been used to asses that which the paper discusses, testing the inferences. They analyze the effects of judicial experiments provided by Furman and Gregg decisions and assess the relationship between execution and homicide rates in state panel data in 1934.

Reggio, Michael H. History of the Death Penalty 1995-2014 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/execution/readings/history.html .

This article talks about the history of the death penalty and goes as far back as 18^th century BC, where the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes, although murder was not one of them. The first death was recorded in 16^th century BC Egypt where someone was accused of magic and ordered to take his own life. The first recorded execution in English American colonies was 1608 when George Kendall of Virginia was killed for supposedly plotting to betray the British to the Spanish.

Head, Tom. Types of Executions http://civilliberty.about.com/od/capitalpunishment/ig/Types-of-Executions/ .

This article goes through the different types of capital punishment and the different ways people are executed. It states the rulers decided how people would be executed like, boiling them in oil, throwing them in snake pits, dragging them under boats, flaying them, poisoning them, burying them alive, drawing and quartering them, etc. The way people are currently executed for the death penalty is less gruesome, the most common is lethal injection. Very few use the gas chamber and the electric chair anymore.

White, Deborah. Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty. http://usliberals.about.com/od/deathpenalty/i/DeathPenalty.htm.

This article talks about the pros and cons of the death penalty. Most people who are against capital punishment think the death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. They think its premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being. 13,000 people have been executed since colonial times. The 1930’s, The Depression Era, saw a historic peak in executions.

 

Journal #5

Coco had 15 puppies on Memorial Day. The last 2 left on Monday and it was a very sad time for me because I get so attached to the puppies. The last 2 that were left were both girls. My cousin Noah wanted to pick out a name for one of the dogs and he chose Alayna. Since we couldn’t remember which was name Alayna originally, we called one Alayna 1 and Alayna 2. They were so cute and loved everyone. They went to a mom and daughter in Boise Idaho. They have a 5 acre yard they can run around in with collars that don’t let them get out of the yard. I am glad they went with someone who has a yard for them to run around in.

Journal #4

This weekend was a fun weekend. We went to Wicked and the Rodeo on Saturday. Wicked was awesome because I have never seen it before and I enjoyed it. I wish I could have watched it again that night. I will definitely be seeing it when it comes back to Utah again. The rodeo was a blast as well. We had very good seats which always makes things better. During the bull riding, a man’s hand got stuck in the holding area and he was drug around for a couple of seconds before he got his hands free.

In Class Writing 07/28/2014

Capital Punishment does well because those who commit crimes horrific enough should be put to death. It may end one life, but it will save many others.

Journal #3

I haven’t written a journal in a while, but I decided to write about what has been going on. Our chocolate lab, her name is Coco, had 15 puppies on Memorial Day. Our house has been crazy because of all the puppies we had. We had 10 girls and 5 boys. We named most of the dogs. They have all gone to good homes. We named the smallest one smalls. He is our favorite. He has always been the smallest and he just loves to run around and play with Coco. We sold the last 2 girls last week to a mom and daughter in Idaho. They are both pretty big girls. We named one Alayna and we can’t remember which girl it is, so we decided to just call them both Alayna. They are leaving on Monday and I am going to be super sad when they leave.

In Class writing 07/09/2014

Facebook 150 friends

Pinterest 438 followers

Linked-In None

MySpace about 100

Twitter about 50

I have more followers on Pinterest than anything and I think it is because they like the pins that I pin and I think it’s the fact that you don’t have to talk to the person. I think Facebook is good for connections because even though you may not know the person, people are always posting things, whether it be about jobs or news things or whatever may come to their mind. I think Facebook is also good for good debates because everyone always has an opinion about something and sometimes people will agree with you, and sometimes they will disagree and the good debate about something comes from the other side of the arguments. I remember getting in a debate on Facebook with a friend and her boyfriend about the men that were on motorcycles attacking a man and his wife in New York. She said she thought it was fine because they were cutting off the motorcycles in a group. I was on the other side where I said they didn’t need to attack them for doing it, because it could have been a mistake and they were harassing them through the city. To this day, we still have not discussed that issue, but we have talked about other things. I do have a LinkedIn account but I don’t ever use it because I just have not found a reason to use it.