Jurisprudence Research Project Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Jurisprudence Project - Research Paper Example This essay covers the criminal perspective of jurisprudence focusing on a murder case and the death penalty. Historical development of capital punishment The death penalty came up after (18) eighteen years failure to execute convicts, arising from the Supreme Court’s moratorium as issued in the case of Furman v. Georgia 408 U.S 238 (1972) (Burton, 2007) where the learned justice held death penalty to be cruel and discriminatory applied to the poor, Negros and low class people. Thereafter, the supreme court reinstated the death penalty by imposing the death penalty, the case law of Gregg v. Georgia 428 U.S. 153 (1976) (Burton, 2007). In New York Court of Appeal in the case of People v. Davis 43, N.Y.2d 17 (1977) ruled that the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment on Human rights this followed that, in the subsequent years, New York Legislature passed new capital punishment statutes every year only to be abolished by the ruling governors. Later in 1994 a governor who promised to bring back the capital punishment got elected to represent New York, after which the 1995 death penalty statute got passed, this saw many prosecutors oppose capital punishment as a mechanism of deterring violent crimes (Burton, 2007). Some declared never to infer death penalty. The people started challenging death penalty until the Court of Appeal in the case of People v. Lavalle 3 N.Y.3d 88 (2004) ruled that at the close of a penalty trial, the clause the judge should inform the jury that on failing to agree on the punishment, then death imprisonment would be effected, violated New York Constitution (Melvin, 1992). Despite the ruling in Lavalle’s case above, the prosecutor in the case of John Taylor continued pursuing the death penalty that the jury had not agreed on the punishment (Betty, 1995). The defense objected on the constitutionality of this provision on the jury’s agreement.