Persuasive Essay : Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is one of the most controversial topics in today’s world. Many people believe that it is morally wrong to have capital punishment as a sentence to a crime. People also do believe that it is morally permissible for a severe crime. Capital punishment is also known as the death penalty. It can be given as a sentence when somebody is convicted of an extremely violent crime. The biggest issue that can be seen with this is that somebody could be innocent and sentenced with the death penalty because of the nature of the crime that they have been accused of even if they didn’t commit it. I believe that there is a moral line between using the death penalty and using other forms of punishment.

In an effort to make sure that innocent men and women are not wrongly convicted in capital punishments cases, they are given a wide range of appeals procedures. Immediately following sentencing an automatic appeals process called Direct Review begins. It is during this process that appellate courts review the lower trial court’s decision, checking for errors and making sure the case was tried on sound judgment. If any errors are found

People on death row are not really dying. “In 2010, a death row inmate waited an average of 178 months (roughly 15 years) between sentencing and execution. Nearly a quarter of deaths on death row in the U.S. are due to natural causes.” (Wikipedia, 2015). We are paying tax dollars to have people sit in prison for up to 15 years, and to have three quarters of them executed. Should we even have capital punishment?

Nearly half of the world today has capital punishment laws in place. With a large percentage of those countries, maintaining moratoriums for more than 10 years. and the other half of the country 's abolishing capital punishment . Here in the United States, we practice capital punishment for those that commit some of the most heinous of offenses . The United State has struggled to justify capital punishment with 18 states abolishing the practice and almost all states having a history of abolishment at one point in their history. In the poem Capital Punishment the narrator gives us a description of a post execution from the perspective of a cook preparing the last meal. The cook never comes out directly and tells us he is against the execution of his fellow inmate ,but he gives us the idea that he is sympathetic to what is about to happen to his fellow inmate. The poem starts out with the cook telling us that condemned Indian man 's last meal was meager and simple. Then the stanza"(I am not a witness)"(Alexie) is placed for the first time out of five in the poem not to indicate that he was or was not a witness to something, but to let the reader know that he was speaking of things he might not be right about. His use of this phrase is used to let the reader know that he was about change ideas and the reader a new point about why the death penalty is wrong. The author also used parentheses instead of any other punctuation with the remark not to quantify his statement in the

Murder, rape, robbery, and assault all reflect the influence of evil from media, family, friends, but ultimately fed by greed from inside. The rise and fall of these violent crimes will continue, but in the hopes of creating a positive society, efforts must be made by society and law enforcement to support a peaceful and good society. 1

Perhaps we should give the judge a knife and tell her that if she has

The use of capital punishment in the United States has been the center of a heated debate for nearly six decades. Prior to the 1960’s society accepted the idea that the interpretation of the fifth, eighth, and fourteenth amendment permitted the use of capital punishment; however, it was suggested in the 1960’s that capital punishment constituted “cruel and unusual punishment”. (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) “In 1958, the Supreme Court had decided that the Eighth Amendment contained an "evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society." This prompted abolitionists to advocate for the dismantling of the use of capital punishment, based on the idea that “the United States had, in fact, progressed to a point that its

Capital punishment is the legitimized killing of someone accused of a crime to serve as punishment. Crimes punishable by this method are known as capital crimes or offenses. Capital punishment is a hotly debated topic that has been around for many decades. In the U. S for instance, this painstaking debate has split the people right in the middle with the opposing camps not ready to loosen their strings whatsoever in favor of the other opinion. Capital punishment is an illegal act under the US Constitution as stipulated in the 8th Amendment. This has made the capital punishment issue the more complicated. By all standards, the definition is frightening and very scary. There have been many cases that have influenced the development of the death penalty in various states across the US and also around the world. The moral justification of capital punishment is one that has split the opinion of people right in the middle. Nonetheless, a risk-benefit analysis would reveal that the 8th Amendment is an unfair piece of legislation and this is because of various reasons.

Imagine walking down a dim lighted hall, knowing that it is the last walk of your life, the last time hearing the echo of your heavy breathing and footsteps, being escorted in to a room in which you will have to lay in a bed and wait to be asked to say your last words. Think about how cruel you are about to have your last minute of life in the hands of someone else and hoping that no mistakes occur in the process. Capital Punishment is a modern day view of “an eye for an eye” and is a form of punishment for offenders who committed treason, espionage, and murders. It is cruel and an unusual for America to have it enacted. The Death Penalty needs to be repealed because it is unconstitutional, irrevocable mistakes occur and costs a whole lot more than having the offender sentenced in jail for life.

To this day it is still unknown as to when the first method of capital punishment was employed in America, however it is said that some of the first recorded deaths began in the early sixteen hundreds. As with any government decision there is always backlash from society and capital punishment is no exception. As vile as a felony may be, capital punishment should no longer be allowed. Too many innocent lives have been lost due to lack of representation of the suspect, police manipulating suspects into false confessions, prosecutors rigging lineups by setting suspect's up for immediate failure, and refusal for further investigation. (FN). Failure to meet standard expectations and positioning a suspect up for death is all too common. These situations violate both the eighth amendment which bans infliction of cruel and unusual punishment, and the 14th amendment which bans deprivation and deniment of equal protection. Too many instances of capital punishment fall under violation of cruel and unusual punishment. By way of illustration there have been a number of cases where unusual drug combinations, improper IV placement, and carelessness have lead to strenuous and excruciatingly painful deaths, which violates the 8th amendment of cruel and unusual punishment. In light of the 14th amendment it has been argued in countless cases that this amendment has been violated in terms of execution of juveniles, and execution of the mentally ill and mentally retarded.

“On the afternoon of July 23, 2007, in the town of Cheshire, Connecticut, two men broke into the home of Dr. William Petit, his wife Jennifer and their two daughters. The men beat Dr. Petit nearly to death with a baseball bat; one of the men raped the doctor’s wife; and the other man sexually assaulted their 11 year-old daughter, Michaela. The two men then strangled Mrs. Petit to death, tied down the two daughters on beds, doused them with gasoline, and, while the girls were still alive, set the house on fire. Dr. Petit survived, but his wife and daughters did not.”

Seventeen, that is how many death row inmates have died in 2017 as of August 25th (“Executions by Year”, 2017). Capital punishment has long been a controversial topic that sparks firing debates regarding ethics, morals, and justice with strongly divided opinions. The penalty is actually simplistic, truly black and white. Capital punishment is socially accepted murder with democracy playing executioner and without this atrocious sentence, society would be better.

The comfort provided to the families and friends of murder and rape victims is one benefit of capital punishment that should not be waved easily aside. How great a consolation it must be that a ruthless criminal can no longer damage the lives of others. As a result of the death penalty, a father and mother no longer have to worry that the same individual who murdered their son will do the same to their daughter. In addition, not only is worry eliminated, but the justice of capital punishment repairs – if only slightly – the injustice which has been done to those who have been murdered or raped, as well as their families. In Genesis, Moses – writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – tells us that “whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image.” (Genesis 9:6, ESV) God calls humanity “very good” in the creation account, because they are the sole bearers of His image on earth – He didn’t choose the rocks, the trees, or the lions to bear his image. Therefore, as the image bearers of God, isn’t only right that humanity exacts judgement on those who have defiled the image of God through murder and rape? Capital punishment is not only a comfort to those affected by tragedy, but also a just punishment upon those by whom the tragedy was caused.

Every country worldwide wants to eliminate all crimes in their society, but it is impossible to do so whether it takes harsh methods like capital punishment. Even Albert Camus, a French philosopher, once said, “For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists” (“Death Penalty Sayings and Quotes”). Capital Punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the execution of an offender who is sentenced to death after being convicted of a crime by the court. In ancient Greece under Draco’s Law, capital punishment was widely employed for murder, treason, arson, and rape. It reflected upon the ancient principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life” which appeared in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (R. Hood). As centuries went by, methods of punishment for the death penalty have developed over time, catering its usage to fit the criminal system of the current society. Some forms of punishment existent today include electrocution, gassing, hanging, firing squad, and the most common, lethal injection. Although the death penalty has been used over several centuries, the issue had been raising a lot of controversy within many governments and their citizens who are currently debating whether it is the right decision for the criminal system. Capital punishment should be abolished worldwide as a form of punishment. Countries with the death penalty have been wrongfully executed

Should any individual be murdered for their violations or errors? Adam Liptak, an essayist for the New York Times, found that, "As per about twelve late investigations, executions spare lives. For every prisoner put to death, the examinations say, 3 to 18 murders are forestalled." Along these lines, capital punishment must be maintained in the Unified Conditions of America keeping in mind the end goal to secure its natives and to appropriately authorize equity.