Death Penalty Punishment

     There are many reasons to both support and oppose the death penalty. Many people can feel very strongly about whether or not they approve of this method of punishment. I feel that the death penalty is wrong, and I believe that there is much support to back this up. I believe that the death penalty is wrong because it is not an effective deterrent, racially and economically bias, unreliable, expensive, and morally wrong of society.

Capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty, is a controversial subject which has been argued for decades due to the ethical decisions involved. People believe the death penalty is the right thing to do and that it is the perfect example of ‘justice’ while others believe that it is immoral and overly expensive. The death penalty is not a logical sentence for criminals, it doesn’t give them the right type of justice and it is immoral.

     The death penalty is absolutely outrageous. There is no real reason that the government should feel that it has the right to execute people. Capital punishment is murder just as much as the people being executed murdered. The is no need for the death penalty and it needs to be abolished. It goes against the Constitution which states that there will be no cruel and unusual punishment. There is nothing crueler than killing a person.

Throughout mankind has been using the death penalty as a form of punishment. Many people argue with this type of punishment because they believe in an eye for an eye. Many people that it is okay to murder a human being due to them having killed an individual over time. There have been many cases that have proven that they death penalty violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, being very expensive, and innocent lives are convicted.

The justice system is filled with opposition. Those who support the use of Supermax, the death penalty and the execution of those who are mentally retarded and juveniles, and those who oppose the above mentioned. The following essay will discuss all mentioned topics.

Some people think that the death penalty is a bad thing and others think that it serves the people right but I don’t really know which side to believe because there are good facts protecting both sides. The Death Penalty is a controversial issue.

Mahatma Gandhi echoed the phrase, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Capital punishment has been a process of punishment since time before Christ. Capital punishment or the death penalty, is the process of punishing, an individual, by execution for committing a crime. One moral theory to justify this process of punishment is cited in Mark Timmons’s book Disputed Moral Issues: A Reader. The consequentialist theory states, “A specific punishment for a certain crime is morally justified if and only if it would likely produce at least as much overall intrinsic value as would any other alternative punishment.” (Timmons, 535) However, this theory has multiple issues in justifying the death penalty, which would be consider a negative consequence. These issues are execution of innocent people, financial cost of executions, and the belief that executions are a deterrence.

Just as Ray Bradbury has said, “The gift of life is so precious that we should feel an obligation to pay back the universe for the gift of being alive” (DeathPenaltyInfo.org). A lesson taught from practically birth, is that the human life is sacred. If the gift of life is so special why do cities and states in the United States find it fair to kill someone instead of keeping them in solitary confinement? These statements are only a few of many that spark a controversy over the issue of prohibiting or allowing the death penalty to continue. In recent studies of six U.S. states, 44% supported the death penalty, while fifty-six percent believed it should be banned. Out of the group who disagreed with the penalty, a majority explained their reasoning

The death penalty is a controversial topic that has been brought to the United States Supreme Court many times. According to the Oxford dictionary, the death penalty is the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime . Usually the death penalty is administered for murder, attempted murder, or intent to kill. It started off being administered by hanging, but then evolved to the electric chair and is now administered through lethal injection. From 1940 to 2014, approximately 3,771 people have been legally executed in the United States. Throughout the years, many things have been determined about the death penalty. The first being that it violates human rights. The second is that innocent lives cannot be brought back. And the third is the large possibility of a biased jury. There have been many cases that support these three points which I will address later. So, based on Supreme Court rulings, the death penalty is unconstitutional and should not continue to be legal.

The death penalty is one of the worst punishments for criminals. There are so many problems rooted in the death penalty.I believe we should get rid of the death penalty because they could be killing an innocent person that has been convicted. We should also get rid of the death penalty because killing someone is more expensive than keeping them in jail for life.People on death row are promised a quick death not a slow and painful one but there have been times when prisoners are taking longer to die and its more painful than it should be.

The death penalty is wrong because capital punishment is not effective in reducing the amount of crime, it claims the lives of innocent people, it is unfair and biased, and most importantly, it is far more costly than a life in prison.

I began my research by looking into the death penalty or also known as capital punishment. The death penalty is the action of executing a person who has committed an illegal act equivalent to death. Crimes punishable by death vary depending on the state; some include murder, sexual assault, treason, and other serious capital crimes (“Crimes Punishable”, 2011). There are many different outlooks on the death penalty; some in favor of the death penalty believe it is the ultimate balance between good and evil and they often use the phrase, “an eye, for an eye.” By using death as punishment they can assure society

Since the foundation of our nation the Death Penalty has been a way to punish prisoners that have committed heinous crimes, however since the turn of the 20th century the practice of Capital Punishment has been questioned on its usage in America and the world as a whole. The Death Penalty is used in America to punish criminals who have committed murders, or taken the life of an innocent person, and while the death penalty seems like it is doing justice to those who have killed others it is actually being used improperly in most situations, while also hindering our economy and is a means of ending more lives than necessary. The Death Penalty can be a valid source of punishment for criminals in the US however due to the misuse of this power by the government it is a huge detriment to our nation and the people that inhabit it. Because of the fact that Capital Punishment is used unfairly, and ineffectively in our nation it is an obsolete form of punishment and should have no place in the United States justice department.

The death penalty is something about which many people do not have a clear opinion. It is considered to be the punishment of execution, administered to someone convicted of a capital crime. Many people support the death penalty, while others wish for the death penalty to be abolished. My personal opinion on the death penalty is that it should be administered only in cases of certain crimes such as: serial murder, serial rape, and terrorism.

In his paper, “The Minimal Invasion Argument Against the Death Penalty”, Hugo Adam Bedau argues against the death penalty. Bedau’s purpose is to convince people to favor the lifetime imprisonment over the death penalty with an argument that had been previously used by other authors called “The minimal Invasion Argument”, which he considers to be “the best argument against the death penalty”(Bedau, 4). In this paper I will describe Bedau’s argument and show how he has some weaknesses addressing the concept of the minimal invasion argument by ignoring what in my opinion is the main reason why the death penalty has not been abolished; this reason being our incapacity as humans to “define” our environment. When