Lindsey Hogan
Professor Reynolds
English 321
July 22, 2015
Determinism: A Valid Argument for Abolishing the Death Penalty? In 1940, Lawrence Bittaker, an infamous serial killer from the 1970’s, was born to two unloving parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was adopted but eventually left abandoned by his adoptive parents who could not put up with him anymore (Chojnaki, M. & Danz, E. p. 1). By the age of 17, Bittaker dropped out of high school, never to obtain his GED. From the ages of 21 to 26, Bittaker was diagnosed “borderline psychotic” and “basically paranoid” multiple times by different doctors (Chojnaki, M. & Danz, E. p. 1). Bittaker was in and out of jail before murdering five teenage girls in 1979 with a partner, Roy Norris (Chojnaki, M. & Danz, E. p. 2). In 1981, Bittaker was sentenced to death. As of today, he is 70 years old and is still on death row at San Quentin Prison in California (Chojnaki, M. & Danz, E. p. 3). A professor at the University of Houston Law Center, David Dow, has represented over 100 death row inmates over the last 20 years (Dow, David, 2012). In a 2012 TED Talk, David explained that he could predict the past history of the death row inmates he represented over the years. Out of those individuals, 80 percent of the time he would accurately predict their life story. Most of their characteristics were similar to Lawrence Bittaker’s early life mentioned previously (Dow, David, 2012). As of December 2014, 35 states in the U.S. still have the
Elliot Spitzer states, “Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don 't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.” Although the Death Penalty is meant to kill the ones that have murdered, many innocent people have been executed due to the ignorance of facts during trial. Since this has come to me and my partner’s attention, we are resolved that The United States should change its penal code to abolish the death penalty. The Death Penalty is execution following someone’s conviction of murder or any other serious crime. Abolish is to end the observance or effect of. The Penal Code is a set of criminal laws of a particular country, society, etc. Our courts are not steady, which is why we need to abolish the death penalty.
The federal government has an obligation to make just laws. Currently, US laws allow for the death penalty for certain heinous crimes. The supporters argue that the 5th Amendment, which guarantees that no one shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” implies that depriving someone of his or her life is permissible under the constitution as long as there is due process. However, there are several reasons why the federal government must abolish the death penalty - it weakens US moral authority over other nations; there have been too many wrongful convictions for death penalty in the US; the death penalty is in conflict with the 8th amendment of the US constitution; and finally, the cost of death penalty
Why should the death penalty be abolished? The death penalty should be abolished because of many reasons. Many people believe the saying, 'an eye for an eye'. But when will people realize that just because someone may have killed a loved one that the best thing for that person is to die also. People don't realize that they are putting the blood of another person life on their hands. This makes them just as guilty as the person who committed the crime: the only difference is that they didn't use weapon except their mouth to kill them. The death penalty should be abolished because it is racist, punishes the poor, condemns those who are innocent to death, and is a cruel punishment.
People who are against the death row are worried that people who are on it might be innocent. The people who support death row, are saying they can’t site one person in modern times who were executed and later proven innocent. DNA test prove that there are a lot more innocent people that have been convicted of a crime, than we thought. There are many cases where people were wrongly accused, and were close to being executed.
I have been on death row for twenty-five years now despite the fact that I am innocent. No matter what I say or do, I cannot be freed. It all started one day when I was nonchalantly walking down the street. Out of nowhere, I was tackled and arrested by several policemen for the “murder” of a wealthy businessman. The only evidence they had was low-quality security camera footage of an African-American man attacking this wealthy white man. It clearly wasn’t me, but that didn’t stop the team of plush lawyers his family hired from putting me on death row. The lawyer provided by the court didn’t stand a chance against them, and most likely in the five other cases he was handling at the time. It wasn’t his fault, but it is unfair that I only have
The death penalty is the the “punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime.” (Google.com) The death penalty has been around for about 400 years now. The death penalty originated in virginia in 1605 by Captain George Kendall. The death penalty itself is a very controversial topic and many people have different [points of view on it. Within this essay will be the main parts ion why the death penalty is the worst thing that has come to the United States.
Lawful executions have recently made the news due to failed attempts to put convicted prisoners to death which resulted in a slow and painful process. Many people are rethinking their position on the death penalty for that reason and others. All three branches of the United States government are and have been involved in the question of the death penalty. Is it now time for the people to decide whether or not the government can end the federal death penalty? An execution in the state of Oklahoma that went wrong made headlines in newspapers, television, and social media. A convicted prisoner, who was given lethal injection came to and was clearly awake. The prisoner showed signs of extreme pain. The President had always supported the death penalty
An argument in opposition of the death penalty is the cost. The word “cost” is affiliated with more than one meaning. There is the numerical value or the estimate the price of a specific piece, this piece being the death penalty. The other is the moral value which pertains to the victims and criminals emotional thought process. Dealing with the cost aspect first, many states confirm that the cost to put a criminal to death via the death penalty, is substantially more than if the criminal were to have life in prison without parole. Anti-death penalty advocates brought economic arguments to the public’s attention which influenced lawmakers in many states to create legislative bills that eliminate capital punishment. By focusing on the costs and inefficiencies of capital punishment, the anti-death penalty movement has given state policymakers a self-interested reason to abolish capital punishment and save their constituents millions of dollars. (Mclaughlin) As early as the 1980s, people on both sides of the death penalty debate started to become aware of the costs involved in capital punishment compared to life imprisonment. (Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review) Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) show 11 states are now considering abolishing executions, with many legislators citing high costs associated with incarcerating and handling often decades-long appeals by death row inmates. (State Crime)
Charles defended himself with the help of an attorney Irving Kanarek. The jury finds all of the murderers guilty and sentenced to the death penalty. California abolishes the death penalty, therefore they all are sentenced to life in prison. In 2012, denied for parole for the 12th time, Charles gets rejected on the accounts of his 108 serious disciplinary violations in prison since 1971 and not showing any sign of remorse for the murders.
The primary reason why people argue against the reinstation of the death penalty is because of the execution of innocent people which in turn, leads to serious miscarriages of justice. This is the primary argument as to why Capital Punishment should not be reinstated because, there have been unlawful executions of innocent civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This argument aims mainly towards the Derek Bentley case as Derek Bentley was wrongly executed for the murder of a police officer when it was his accomplice, Christopher Craig who pulled the trigger and killed the police officer. It was the phrase “let him have it” that was interpreted to state that it was Bentley who told Craig to kill the officer instead of surrendering the weapon. This case was one of the main pieces of evidence required for protestors to protest about having Capital Punishment abolished in the United Kingdom as Bentley was only 19 when he was executed. The conviction for Derek Bentley was eventually abolished in 1998. Mahmood Hussain Matan was another example of a wrongful execution as he was executed in 1952 after being wrongfully convicted for the murder of Lily Volpert. His case was eventually quashed in 1998 by the Court of Appeal making it the first case referred to the Court of Appeal under the new Criminal Cases Review Commission. This proves why people want the Death Penalty to stay abolished because, over time, there have been serious miscarriages of justice towards the
Premise 2 your argument was to keep future victims safe and one of your example are prison guards. Prison guards are trained to handle dangerous situations and protect themselves from inmates. It is there job so why would it be okay to kill another person to keep them safe from doing the job they choose. Also, as an abolitionist I believe the death penalty is clearly a denial of a person’s human rights. The death penalty goes against the 8th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States explicitly prohibits the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. Well isn’t that what the death punishment promotes. It’s a cruel, heartless and degrading punishment.
The catastrophic risk of committing irreversible judicial errors is another reason why the death penalty should be abolished. On average, there have been more than four cases each year in which an innocent individual was convicted for a murder, and a majority of the convicts were sentenced to death. One of the many cases in which an innocent person was sentenced to die was the case of Texas vs. Cameron Todd Willingham. Willingham was executed for murdering his three children by setting a fire. Nevertheless, investigations by a newspaper, an independent expert hired by the State of Texas, and experts in the fire science department all found evidence indicating that the fire was an accident, and the deaths were accidents. Even with these reports, Willingham was executed
The death penalty has most Americans 63 % favors using the death penalty in murder convictions, and I am one of the majority that does favor the death penalty. I don’t believe in others, taking innocent lives, is it right to take a life of a love one who may be a mother, father, daughter, son, grandchild, husband, cousin, nephew, niece, fiancé, girlfriend, boyfriend, grandmother, or grandmother. Losing a love one is already hard, but losing a relative whose innocent, that may have been stalked, or even at the wrong place at the wrong time who’s to say it was the wrong place at the wrong time when you were simply tending to your daily life.
There is nothing humane about killing a human being. The act of committing murder is offensive and cruel (Mappes, DeGrazia & Zembaty, 2012). Justice can be served in various ways and will be as effective as the death penalty. Life imprisonment without parole is one such way of dealing with persons convicted of committing a murder (Mappes, DeGrazia & Zembaty, 2012).
In order to become a good communicator, whether it is within a workplace, sport’s team, classroom, community, etc., you must be able to understand, listen and appreciate the perspective of other people, even if you agree with them or not. When arguing for or against a topic, the goal is to convince others to accept you opinion, take your opinion seriously, and you must seek common ground in order to establish some form of compromise. A good communicator must be specific, contestable, significant and reasonable. For this assignment, I will be arguing for and against The Death Penalty.