Michigan

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Term Paper Title	Michigan
# of Words	871
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.48

                         Michigan

Michigan is an exception when it comes to the death penalty.  It has historically abolished the death penalty and is one of only six states to repeal the death penalty (Koch and Galliher 324).  In 1847, Michigan became the first English speaking jurisdiction in the world to abolish the death penalty.  Michigan's abolition was not an easy road. The constitutional ban of the death penalty in Michigan is very much a historically based decision and that is a major reason that it has not been changed. In Michigan, the death penalty is not a major symbol of the law, because it is not a part of society there.  Although public opinion polls support the death penalty there,  it has never been reinstated.  The lack of meaning to the death penalty in Michigan is the reason that it has been abolished for so long in Michigan.
During the early 1840's there was a population of society that was calling for the abolition of the death penalty.  Many of these anti-gallows activists felt that total abolition was a long way off because of the many other issues, such as slavery and temperance.  Private hangings and death for first degree murder did not upset the majority of Americans (Masur 157).  The Legislators were convinced at this time that eliminating the gallows would "unkennel the bloodhounds of disorder …would seriously weaken the restraint of all law and perhaps overturn the fiery foundations of our political existence (Masur 157)."  This made it very difficult to get laws passed that abolished the death penalty.  It was quite surprising when Michigan abolished the death penalty in 1847.
When Michigan was admitted to the statehood in 1838, the revised statutes of the state provided for death in cases of murder and treason.  The legislature had sporatically debated and defeated bills to abolish capital punishment for murder until 1846.  It was then that the State Senate voted 9 to 2 and the State House voted 21-14 to eliminate the death penalty.  The punishment that death was replaced with was solitary imprisonment and hard labor for life.  This law went into effect March 1, 1847 (Masur 157).
The story of a tavern owner in Detroit is told as part of Michigan's history, but it speaks directly to the issue of support of the death penalty.  Stephen Simmons, owner of a tavern, was sentenced to hang for the death of his wife.  He had killed her by punching her while he was drunk. (Michigan's Writer's Project 245).  The sheriff at the time, Thomas Knapp, refus...

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