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Argumentative Essay On The Death Penalty

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My initial thoughts on the death penalty were that no matter how much the death penalty deters crime, it is still a cruel punishment. I always assumed that the death penalty violated our eighth amendment, so why in this day and age is it still deemed as a penalty for a crime? It is widely known that the use of the death penalty is an extremely serious and permanent punishment. However, the government had already found its way to justify it by creating the fifth amendment which allows someone to be executed as long as there is due process of law. The bill of rights was written centuries ago in a time when execution was deemed necessary for a majority of crimes.
The death penalty, also commonly referred to as capital punishment, can be sentenced to anyone that has been convicted of murder or a capital crime. In the eighteenth century, more than two hundred crimes were deemed punishable by death because everyone had this idea of retribution but to the worst extent. Currently there are nineteen states that have abolished the death penalty in the United States; while execution still remains an option for thirty-one states. In the United States, it is acknowledged that the system is flawed and sometimes unjust resulting in many states abolishing the death penalty. Why do the remaining states want to keep the punishment around?

Before I completely sided with one viewpoint of this argument I wanted to do some research. After searching for articles on Opposing Viewpoints that

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