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Death Penalty Retribution Essay

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A widely known form of retribution is the death penalty. The Death Penalty puts you on death row if you committed a crime such as; treason, terrorism, federal murder, large-scale drug trafficking. After you are put on death row, it may take years before you are executed, some even die from natural causes or suicide before their execution. Execution can be done in many forms such as; Lethal Injection (typically a combination of the three drugs sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride for immediate death) , Electrocution (Commonly known method is the electric chair which only six states do any more), Gas Chamber (Lethal gas which yet again only six states do any more), Firing Squad (group of soldiers designated to shoot down …show more content…

The common factor we have is that we live only one life and then we no longer exist. The Death Penalty is putting so many innocent people at risk. Death is irrevocable and permanent, unlike the laws or evidence that can change in the future. Statistics show that since 1973, one hundred and fifty six people have been freed from Death Row because they have been proven innocent. If the new evidence has not been released those one hundred and fifty six people would have been executed and gone forever. Not to mention out of those people, eighty one exonerations have been African American, which leads me to my next point. Racism has always been an issue from even before slavery. Slavery was abolished almost one hundred and fifty one years ago and yet racism is still present to this day. The race of the defendant and the race of the victim are major factors in who gets to live or die. According to a report from the General Accounting Office (1990), eighty-two percent of the death penalty studies reviewed showed that those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death compared to someone who murdered a black person. We as a country can not keep executing people based on who they killed or what they look

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