Persuasive Essay On The Death Penalty

    The death penalty is an overkill of our society’s morality. Our humanity will be lost if we allow the death penalty. Humanity consists of our ability to have moral considerations towards life which is looking at more than just happiness that utilitarians tend to do. Innocence, being understanding, valuing people and things in life, and being virtuosic are views that keeps our humanity. There comes a time when people act off of emotions and decide to push away their morals.  Some may consider killing someone for their crime, but that makes us just as bad as them. Now, we are the killer. People have impulses that can become irrational and

As Cass R states… “Capital punishment may be morally required, not for retributive reasons, but rather to prevent the taking of innocent lives”. Death penalty is one of those extreme punishments that would create fear in the mind of any person. If murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life.

I understand that some people think it’s justice but it’s really not. The way to make that person who has done something bad suffer is to let them sit in prison and rot. They will then have a long time to think about the crime or crimes that they had committed. Some people feel that if one don’t get the death penalty they are considered free but that is not the case. Just cause they are not put to death doesn’t mean they are free. They still have to sit in prison and deal with what they have done. To me I think that the death penalty should just be eliminated

The death penalty, by definition, is the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime. Each state has their own determinates of why someone would be given the death penalty, for example, in Missouri, it is first degree murder, but for Alabama it is intentional murder with 18 aggravating factors.

First, the death penalty gives some closure to the victim's families who have suffered enormously. Family members of the crime victims may take years, even decades to recover from the shock and loss of a loved one. Though, some may never recover. But the one thing that helps hasten this recovery is to achieve some kind of closure. Because life in prison only means that the criminal is still around to haunt them. A death sentence would enable them to close that

You’re probably thinking, with the death penalty it permanently removes a criminal from the society, but your wrong. This makes you just as much a killer as the killer who committed the crime. Everyone has the freedom to life and you taking their life away, makes it seem as if they’re just a speck of dust, and you’re the one sweeping it up.

Imagine what it feels like for people who are on death row. Regrets are racing through their minds. Nerves are shooting up their spine. They start to feel this overwhelming guilt come upon them. This guilt makes them feel as if they deserve this punishment. The truth is they do not deserve it. No human being in this world deserves that punishment. They deserve a second chance. They deserve a glimmer of hope in their life that makes them strive to do better. The death penalty kills their hope. It takes their hope and annihilates it, leaving no traces behind. The death penalty is a punishment that should never be used because no person deserves to be killed for their actions, and it has way too many harmful statistics that affect the government and the people of America.

The most pertinent use for the death penalty is to punish the criminal for their crime and attempt to bring closure to the victim’s loved ones. The viciousness of committing capital murder demands extreme punishment should be taken against the offender. Imagine you and your family are brutally murdered but you could still see what happens afterwards. Now imagine the person that committed the heinous crime only received life in prison and was going to live a long time. How would you feel knowing that while you and your family no longer have the right live anymore the murder is going to have a chance to live their life and be taken care of for the rest their days? Some may find this unfair and the victims don’t have a chance to voice their opinion on the sentencing. Often the only way for the victim’s family, friends, and loved ones to receive closure is with the death of one who committed the brutal crime. They can receive closure knowing the offender is dead and no longer able to harm them or others. Also knowing the killer felt the same thing as the victims can provide some closure or at least make it easier to move on

When researching a very controversial topic the Death Penalty I came across a whole different beast and that is our Justice System. A very strong campaign “A War on Crime” is really “A War on Race”. Black people make up 6% of the U.S. Population but in prison make up 40% of U.S. general population in prisons. The U.S population accounts for 4.4 percent of the world’s population but the U.S. holds 22 percent of the worlds prisoners. To many African Americans are being put in prison. Major corporations should not have control over what laws do and don’t get passed. There has to be a problem with the U.S justice system and because of it our prisons are overcrowded.

Carlos Deluna was executed in Texas in 1989 and was sentenced to death on an eyewitness account proving to be a thin and an inaccurate statement displaying that the actual killer was a lookalike. Larry Griffin was executed in Missouri in 1995 with a trial that purely consisted of one witness whose sole testimony was undermined, leaving the first police officer on the scene to conclude that Griffin should not have been a suspect in the case at all let alone sentenced to death row. David Spence was executed in Texas in 1997 and was charged with the murders of three teenagers, he was put to death even though the police lieutenant who supervised Spence’s investigation did not believe him to be involved and claimed his innocence. (DP Info Center)

Due to changing attitudes in American society, the use of the death penalty, especially for certain crimes, is decreasing and controversial. Currently only 31 states use the death penalty, as a legal punishment to killing someone else (Capital Punishment in the United States). From a high of 98 executions in 1998 to a low of 23 in 2017, the trend for the death penalty is that it is being used less and less in the United States. Yet, as Time magazine also reported in its June 8, 2015 issue, 70% of Americans agreed with the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarndev, one of the brothers responsible for the bombing in the 2013 Boston Marathon. There are certain crimes that the American public say warrants the death penalty, such as child killers and mass murders. But the unmistakable trend for capital punishment is down significantly in the past 20 years. (The Death of the Death Penalty).

According to Deathpenaltyinfo.org, as of July 1st, 2017 there were approximately 2,817 prisoners on death row. CNN.com says that, as of now, the death penalty is only legal in 31 out of the 50 states. Did you know that the average death row inmate will spend roughly 15 years in prison before they meet their final day; nearly a quarter of death row inmates die of natural causes while waiting for execution, and exhausting all of their appeals? How about that in Virginia death row inmates are now able to play games, watch TV, send emails, and have physical contact with visitors along with much more? Death row is for criminals that have committed heinous crimes and have been convicted by 12 unanimous jurors to death. So, why give them that many privileges?

The topic of the death penalty, or capital punishment, is a controversial topic all around the world because there are so many gray areas on the subject. This type of punishment dates back to colonial times, with more recent criminal cases resulting in the death penalty. Capital punishment deters crime and gives closure to the families of victims. Some crimes are so inherently evil that they demand strict penalties. The death penalty should be allowed as a criminal punishment.

What are your opinions of the death penalty? Do you believe that it should be a rightful punishment or do you believe that it does no good for the system? Many believe in the "eye for an eye" statement for the fairness of justice while others believe that capital punishment is not a strong way to go by. The death penalty is an efficient way to discipline criminals for the wrongdoing and the hurt that they caused for the families affected by it and to help bring closure for those individuals. Perry Edward Smith and Richard (Dick) Eugene Hickock deserve to be punished for the gruesome murders of the Clutter family.

The problem with the death penalty is that it is a big waste of money. Yes, in some cases it can make people feel better, like they are getting revenge on the people that did the crime to their loved one or someone they know but that is really cruel. In the article, The Price of Justice it shows how the price were a few years ago and it can only of up from there “in 1988, The Miami Herald reported that the cost of the death penalty in Florida was $3.2 million per execution compared to $600,000 for life imprisonment.103 Similarly, The Dallas Morning News reported in 1992 that the trials and appeals of a capital case alone cost Texas $2.3 million per case on average”. Making the criminal sit in a jail cell that is not that big with other bad people is more of a punishment then just killing them. And it is a lot cheaper to do it that way as well. The cost of the death penalty is not reasonable because the state can’t even perform the death penalty the right way. And we can use the money for better things for our states and for our society so we can improve our comity’s so