Running head: CAPTIAL PUNISHMENT
1
Should Capital Punishment be Abolished?
Ashley Harris
Indiana State University
GH101
CAPTIAL PUNISHMENT
2
While killing a person for an offense against the ruling power was certainly not unheard
of in the history of mankind, the methods used to carry out these sentences have varied
throughout history. The first laws written concerning capital punishment that we know of date
back to before 18 B.C. These first laws were named the “The Code of the King Hammurabi of
Babylon” and codified the death penalty as a punishment for committing 25 specific crimes
(Death Penalty Information Center, n.d). The concept of a ‘death sentence’ originally came to
the Americas from British settlers. Methods utilized over recorded time for carrying out these
sentences have included drowning, being beat to death, crucifixion, stoning, beheading,
impalement, being drawn and quartered, disembowelment, hanging, death by firing squad,
starvation, and being burned alive (Death Penalty Information Center, n.d.). Today the death
