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The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished Essay

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The death penalty is used as punishment for criminals who have committed a capital crime/offense: murder, terrorism, or sex crimes. This practice of “an eye for an eye” has been an ongoing controversy in American society for decades. There are multiple viewpoints on this topic, but they boil down to two parts: abolish it because of morals or do not abolish it because of the fear it places in future criminals. North Carolina is one of the eighteen states left that has not banned the death penalty as a form of punishment and the debate over what to do with it remains heated. Some argue that the death penalty deters crime while others argue it causes much more harm than good to anyone involved in the case. The death penalty should be abolished in order to eliminate the risk of executing an innocent person, reduce the time consumed by attorneys and families involved, and obliterate the excessive amounts of money spent on one single case. The death penalty has been used and abused much longer than many people realize. The first use of the death penalty occurred in the Jamestown, Virginia Colony against for espionage, or the act of spying (Issit). The death penalty can be traced back to times when the United States were still under the British rule and consisted of colonies. Since there was no Eighth Amendment yet, when the death penalty was first introduced in the colonial time period, it was greatly abused. Some colonists were given the death penalty for stealing

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