Cruel and Unusual: Capital Punishment in America

Joslyn Meek Senior Division Individual Website

Joslyn Meek Senior Individual Website NHD 2014

Process Paper When I heard that the theme was rights and responsibilities, I drifted toward capital punishment right away. It is always been a topic that I have felt very strongly about, because the moral values that I have been brought up on. At first, I had my topic in the narrow topic of mentaly ill inmaites on death row. This was not the best option because it is a more recent issue in America, and it proved difficult to find anything that is more than ten years old. After this, I decided to open up my topic to include all of capital punishment. This is a topic that has been deaply rooted into America for many years. My research was conducted in several ways. I started by finding several secondary sources on the internet. I used these sources to dig deaper into the relm of Capital Punishment in America. The secondary sources I found lead me to primary sources, that ultimately helped me shape my topic. Reasearch was the hardest part for me. There where times when various sensitive capital punishment videos and pictures that came up. It was hard for me to endure this sensitive content, but also helped my opinion of capital punishment become much stronger. I chose to enter the competition using a website. The website category is one of the most challenging. I decided if I chose the easy road, than I would be taking the path more traveled. I am very appreciative that I was given the opportunity to enter this competition.

Cruel and Unusual: Capital Punishment in America fits nicely into the theme of this competition. The theme this year was rights and responsibilities. My topic ties right into the 8th Amendment, to the United States Constitution. The justice systems responsibility to respect the right given to American citizens is the main idea of my website. Capital punishment violates our constitutional rights for being cruel and unusual. The whole process of killing a man should be considered cruel and capital punishment should violate the 8th amendment.