Should The Death Penalty Be Justified?

Edward I. Koch uses his essay “The Death Penalty: Can It Ever Be Justified?” to defend capital punishment. He believes that justice for murderous crimes is essential for the success of the nation. The possibility of error is of no concern to Koch and if would-be murderers can be deterred from committing these heinous crimes, he feels the value of human life will be boosted and murder rates will consequently plummet (475-479). Koch makes a valiant effort to express these views, yet research contradicts his claims and a real look at his idea of justice must be considered in order to create a fair nation for all.

Capital punishment is a legal authorization to kill someone for a crime they have committed. The death penalty has been the highest form of criminal punishment in the American judicial system since the 13 colonies. It has taken the form of hanging, stoning, drowning, burning, beheading, gassing, electrocution, and injection. The taking of a man 's life as penance for criminal behavior is wrong. The moral injustice of murder, the cruelty of execution, and the death of innocent men are all concerns that make the death penalty wrong. Our society has taught children that violence is not the answer and yet our highest form of punishment is executing someone which does not solve anything, nor does it fix a problem. The United States should abolish the death penalty due to execution of innocent people, excessive cost and it is against the US constitution.

The legitimacy of the use of capital punishment has been tarnished by its widespread misuse , which has clouded our judgment regarding the justifiability of the death penalty as a punitive measure. However, the problems with capital punishment, such as the “potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness and racial skew" , are not a basis for its abolition, as the world of homicide suffer from these problems more acutely. To tackle this question, one must disregard the currently blemished universal status quo and purely assess the advantages and disadvantages of the death penalty as a punitive measure. Through unprejudiced examination of the death penalty and its consequential impacts, it is evident that it is a punishment that effectively serves its retributive, denunciatory, deterrent, and incapacitative goals.

The death penalty, or capital punishment, has been around as early as the Seventh Century B.C. and is still used in many countries today, including the United States. There are many arguments stating capital punishment should be abolished for many reasons, including that capital punishment violates the Bill of Rights, and life in prison is a more effective deterrent than capital punishment; there are also counter-arguments, saying that capital punishment should not be abolished for reasons such as capital punishment achieves justice for those who have been wronged and that it brings a sense of closure to families.

“The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?” In 1607 the British left the United Kingdom to the new world now known as the United States. When the British went to the United States they brought over the death penalty with them. When the British came to the United States there had been some spies that followed them from the European countries. They ended up finding a guy named Kendall who was a spy from spain. The first execution occurred in Virginia where they executed Kendall. After the first execution, it became a regular thing in the new world. People were executed for stealing grapes, trading with the Indians and killing chickens.

Good afternoon Madam chairperson and my fellow students. The topic for our debate is “That Australia Should Reintroduce or Legalise the Death Penalty.” We the negative team, do not believe we should reintroduce the death penalty.

With all the jails in the United States being overcrowded with convicts with serious crimes, and doing life without parole. I start to wonder what the impact would be if the United States allowed the death penalty to be used in all fifty states?

American prisons today are filled to their capacities, yet crime here in America seems to have increased. I am speaking of one of the cruelest forms of crime that must be eradicated, which is murder. It seems as though a life sentence does not impose fear into modern day criminals, seeing that serious crimes are being committed more often. The death penalty is something that is needed here in the United States to help lower these ongoing vicious crime rates. In the essay “The Death Penalty: Is It Ever Justified?” Written by Edward I. Koch, this exact issue is discussed. Koch believes capital punishment in the form of the death penalty may help make these criminals to understand morality, or right from wrong. He states, “Life is indeed precious, and I believe the death penalty helps to affirm that fact” (483). If they were aware of the penalty, criminals may have, “Shown moral awareness before their victims die, and not after” (484). Through persuasive techniques Koch will support his argument in favor of the death penalty.

Over the course of human history the earliest known concept of capital punishment has been around since the 18th Century BCE, where the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon codified the death penalty for twenty five different crimes (Reggio, 2015). From the 18th Century until now there have been many other societies that have used capital punishment for various crimes, such as the Hittite Code, Draconian Code of Athens, and also Roman law. Those different cultures used different methods for execution and followed different rules for people of different race, religion, creed, social status, etc. As history progressed, capital punishment itself has gone through many changes; the ways of execution have evolved from brutal and torturous methods such as burning at the stake, burying alive, bludgeoning to death, impalement,

Across America there are 27 different states that have the death penalty. there are reasons that the death penalty should be used for example when someone kills other people or a group of people they should be put in the court with the death penalty to be an option.

A 35 year-old man, guilty of brutally murdering his ex-wife and her father, was sentenced to death. This man underwent a botched execution, which was excruciatingly painful due to human error. The inmate awoke shortly after the lethal drugs had been injected and remained conscious for nearly 45 minutes until he experienced a heart attack and died. Although this man suffered greatly, many argue that the criminal still deserved the punishment received and tat there is no alternative more humane. Until 1976 executions were more brutal, for example public hangings, the electric chair, and firing squads but now more than 85% are preformed by lethal drugs ("Capital Punishment: Should" 5). The topic

Biblical History demonstrated that death was the method utilized to punish that act of Murder. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. () In today’s society the death penalty is still used as a form of punishment. However, the use of the death penalty is a flawed system. Specifically, the events that lead to the use of the death sentence creates an environment where those who decided the fate of a persons are confined to a system in which they become disengaged

Since the foundation of our nation the Death Penalty has been a way to punish prisoners that have committed heinous crimes, however since the turn of the 20th century the practice of Capital Punishment has been questioned on its usage in America and the world as a whole. The Death Penalty is used in America to punish criminals who have committed murders, or taken the life of an innocent person, and while the death penalty seems like it is doing justice to those who have killed others it is actually being used improperly in most situations, while also hindering our economy and is a means of ending more lives than necessary. The Death Penalty can be a valid source of punishment for criminals in the US however due to the misuse of this power by the government it is a huge detriment to our nation and the people that inhabit it. Because of the fact that Capital Punishment is used unfairly, and ineffectively in our nation it is an obsolete form of punishment and should have no place in the United States justice department.

Should we as Americans be the ones to judge someone to death? That is what happens every time that a criminal is sentenced to death. The death penalty is a major debate that Americans have faced for many years. Who are we though to commit a crime against one who committed the wrongful crime? Doesn’t this make us just as guilty as the criminal? Through this paper we will explore the pros, cons, and whether the death penalty serves to morally normalize society.

Capital punishment, better known as the death penalty, is the act of killing or executing a person who was found guilty of a serious crime, by the government. Capital punishment became widespread during the Middle Ages and was applied throughout Western Europe for more than two thousand years. Although, the call to abolish it started in the 18th century, some of the first countries being Venezuela in 1863, San Marino in 1865, and Costa Rica in 1877. Great Britain abolished the death penalty in 1965 and was permanently outlawed in 1969. By 2004, eighty-one countries had abolished capital punishment, but some countries in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia still use it for ordinary crimes. At present day, China and the United States apply the