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Should Death Penalty Be Illegal In The United States?

Decent Essays

Taz Ramsay
September 13, 2017
Comp. 1 4th hour
Argumentative Essay
The Death Penalty Should the death penalty be illegal in the United States? Should the death penalty have ever been used at all? Most people would say that the death penalty should not be illegal, while I think it should be illegal and should have been illegal. There are many reasons why the death penalty should be illegal, but what is the death penalty?
The death penalty is when a person is put to death, by the state, for a crime that they have committed. The death penalty is also called Capital Punishment. The first recording of the death penalty was recorded in 1608 when a man named George Kendall was sentenced to death for spying in Spain. This happened in Virginia and after four years things such as, exchanging goods with Native Americans or killing chickens were considered crimes and people could be punished by death. Capital Punishment had then spread through Pennsylvania to Michigan, and then started spreading throughout the United States. …show more content…

Whenever Capital Punishment was legal people started to use drugs to stop a person’s heart instead of some of the other methods that were used. Some of the other methods that were used were electrocution, a firing squad, a gas chamber, and hanging. A firing squad and hanging are no longer allowed in the United States. Electrocution, lethal injection, and the use of a gas chamber are all allowed in the United States. Prisoners are allowed to decide between the methods they can die from. Since 1973, 153 people have been exonerated from death, (Death Penalty Information Center

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