Pros And Cons Of The Death Penalty

The death penalty is still in use in the united states. The state with the most executions is in Texas with a total of 545 from 2017 to the year 1976 (Number of Executions, 2017). The death penalty is a very big debate. There are many reasons why and why people do and don’t like the death penalty.

The Government used to have a death penalty where you would have to sit in a chair that shocks you all the way to your death. When time has come passed the electric chair was eliminated and now their using the lethal injection where you are poisoned and killed instantly. Out of everybody on the death row 42% are Black, 43% are Whites, 13% are Hispanic, and 2% are other races. In the US there was 3,035 people on death row last October. 150 death row inmates were released due to their innocence being found. In Cali people who killed whites where 3 times more likely to get the death row then those who killed blacks.

The death penalty has been a debated topic for decades. Many people believe that it serves justice to the person being executed, while others think that it does no good for either party. However, I believe the three most outstanding topics surround the death penalty are the cost of death vs. life in prison, attorney quality, and irrevocable mistakes.

After viewing the National Geographic documentary titled “Death Row Texas”, I found myself grieving the loss of my father. Preceding my father’s death, he was an employee of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) working as a Correctional Officer at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, known as the “Walls Unit”. Over the years, some of the stories that my father shared with me regarding TDCJ unfair system has me struggling with this question, particularly since TDCJ designed the system to oppress people of color through the act of mass incarceration, life in prison, and the death sentence according to a news article published by the New Yorker titled, “The Caging of America”. In the United States of America, White Americans have been murdering innocent African-Americans for centuries without punishments for their crimes, and yet today this behavior continues throughout our criminal justice system. According to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Texas alone has accounted for more than 30% of the executions in the United States, and over the past five years, people of color make up 80% of the death sentences in Texas with more than 60% of the death sentences imposed on African-Americans. In response to the question whether Willie Earl Pondexter Jr., Johnny Ray Johnson and David Martinez deserve the death penalty, I am still undecided on my position due to my uncertainty regarding the usefulness in imposing the death sentence. Furthermore,

Duhaime's Law Dictionary defines the death penalty as, “a sentence of death imposed on a convicted criminal… also known as capital punishment, this is the most severe form of corporal punishment…” (Duhaime). Today in America, the death penalty is administered via lethal gas chambers and lethal injection. Thirty-three out of the fifty states in the United States of America allow the death penalty to be a possible sentencing; it is an option used for serious crimes (Gill). It is a bipartisan issue and the politicians who support it do so based on their moral beliefs and not on facts. Although it is believed that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for certain criminals, it is a misuse of taxpayer money, unethical and inhumane.

Is the Death Penalty is it moral or no? In my opinion the death penalty can be seen as moral because people who has or have committed rape, murder, kidnapping, and many other difference crimes. People who are doing death penalty right now and continuing to do it. Should still be counter for that because if you are taking a person's life away, then I think their life should be taken away as well. It is just not fair for the family members who have lost a loved one, so therefore the death penalty should be counter for the person that convicted a crime. A person who takes someone else life away shows their neglect for the rights of others in the world. It shows that they have no rights for their own-self. Although, death penalty can be cruel of the punishment are the people that are for it and they mainly see it as” a eye for an eye”. Also, there are people who do not think death penalty is moral because we are killing people just the same way as a person that has killed someone already that killing someone is wrong to do. It can be possible that the person who has convicted a serious crime can change as they are serving a long life sentence in prison.

The death penalty may seem like a good idea, but did you know it's only available in 31 states ? The killing of criminals is something allowed by the government and that is a good thing. An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth , the death penalty should not be banned because it brings closure to the victims families and justice is better served.

The brutal murder of a family of four has implanted the sense of confusion into the minds of many, to whether or not the death penalty should be inflicted upon the two criminals or not. The killings set off a chain of questions to if the death penalty was even humane. The two killers seemed to have no remorse in the their actions, and fought their hardest to get off the hook. They plead insanity, but the prosecution argues that they knew exactly what they were doing. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith should be put to death because of their lack of remorse, the grotesque actions of the crime, and the fact that their deeds were premeditated.

Many people stand oppose side of the death sentence because they think human have no rights to play God-have control over human lives. However, even more, people agree with a death penalty. According to National Conference of State Legislatures, there are 32 states in America that utilize the death penalty. The number of the annual death penalty never surpass the hundred (Statistic Brain) and more than half of the people (65%) agree with this method of sentencing. Death penalty provides an effective form of punishment for crimes involving the conviction of one person for the intentional killing of another person, it should be agreeable punishment for reasons: to save the budget, to lecture and to warn the potential criminal, and to provide happiness for the majority, including the victim and her/his relatives (public vengeance).

“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice”(Desmond Tutu). The death sentence is a court ordered law to execute someone because of the crimes they have committed. The death penalty should be abolished because the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment, the fear of death does not deter murders, and time in prison is much more effective and efficient than the death penalty.

Moreover, the death penalty is a cruel and unjust punishment, going against the 8th amendment. The

Hello, I am Julia Patterson and my colleague, Hadley Nodes, and I firmly believe that the death penalty is a just fulcrum for America. To start, ¨Resolved: The death penalty is a good method of justice,¨ is the resolution we fully support. The death penalty is a civil method of justice because of the golden rule, cost, and historical documents. According to Webster's Dictionary, 1828, justice means, “the establishment . . . of rights according to the rules of law,¨ (Merriam). Therefore, the value, justice, means the establishing of rights. Killing someone is taking away one’s right, thus that person’s right to life should be taken away. All in all, the death penalty is a judicious fine for crimes.

According to Hollander the American society instituted the death penalty as early as 1608, and our views regarding lethal punishment have greatly fluctuated ever since (418). While the public’s perception to the death penalty fluctuated it did gain support from 1920 to 1940. However in the 1950s there was a decrease in support. The 1960s featured new challenges to the death penalty’s unbridled discretion, until this time the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments were interpreted as allowing the death penalty. The new analysis of addressing the absolute discretion given to sentencing juries continued until Furman v. Georgia (Hollander 418). From the 1950s to the 1970s there were a meager number of executions with increasing scrutiny of the death penalty, which led to the federal government expanding its list of death-eligible federal offenses (Hollander 419). In 1972 the Court released an unprecedented yet divided five-person majority judgement in Furman v. Georgia that invalidated every existing capital statute and verdict (Hollander 419). According to the Progressive Editorial Staff on February 17, 1972 the California Supreme Court ruled in California v. Anderson that capital punishment is impermissible cruel and unusual punishment as it degraded and dehumanized the parties involved. In November of 1972 proposition 17 passes, the prop supersedes the Anderson ruling by amending the state constitution to reinstate the death penalty, ultimately the change to the states

As of today there are 33 out of the 50 states of America that allow the death penalty although there are numerous debates on this law. The death penalty usually is issued when a man/women commits a crime that is so horrific that the only way to be able to punish the criminal is to have them sentenced to the death penalty. Most states definition of a death penalty is by lethal injection. Although some states offer other ways of death. Some states include death by lethal gas, hanging, electric chair, hanging, and firing squad each one being able to do same thing in the end. But is the death penalty an understandable way of convicting a criminal? Some may say it is inhumane to take the life of another criminal. Others may say if the criminal commits a crime so cruel such as murder and rape deserve not be alive in this world anymore. Which is what I believe is the correct way to sentence a criminal of that manner. If a person were to go out of their own way to murder another person they should also have their life also taken away.

From 1976, until May 12, of 2016, there has been a total of 1,436 deaths due to the execution of prisoners, who were legally given the death penalty in the court of law. What is the death penalty? The death penalty is an execution legally administered to someone convicted of a capital crime. In the United States, 31 states still uphold the death penalty as a form of punishment to those on death row. Although the capital punishment, which is just the act of execution, is the cruelest punishment a person can receive; the death penalty should be abolished for various reasons.