preview

The Pros And Cons Of Capital Punishment

Decent Essays

Pope Benedict XVI once said “When every man lives without law, every man lives without freedom.” This is true everywhere, but it is taken as principle in the United States. The document defining the framework of this government even stresses both of these issues. The United States prides itself on its legal system. The first thing that comes to mind when talking about US courtrooms is “innocent until proven guilty,” which is thrown around quite a bit, but in reality, being blameless until the court has proven you have done something wrong is a revolutionary idea. The United States Constitution guarantees everyone equal protection under the law, along with guaranteed privileges such as the right to a jury trial, the right not to self incriminate, and the right that no cruel and unusual punishment will be received. However, what if one of these was not necessarily true? This is exactly what a reasonable amount of people have been arguing since the 1950s (Capital Punishment: Should Capital Punishment be allowed in the United States?). More specifically, these people have been arguing that the death penalty should be abolished. While the death penalty has been present in United States legal history since before this country was founded, the first execution being in 1608, there are many opponents of capital punishment who believe that this practice should be done away with for a whole host of reasons (Issitt). In today’s society, the use of the death penalty has become a subject

Get Access