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Using the Death Penalty as Retribution for a Crime: Responses

Decent Essays

RESPONSE 1:
When you say "there are some crimes that need to have the solution of death," this may be what you feel personally, but it is not necessarily something that can or should be enforced by the law. The United States Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel and unusual punishment is to some extent defined by social mores, which change over time. The United States is the only major industrialized democracy that has the death penalty. Furthermore, the death penalty is not uniformly enforced across the land. Someone who is wealthy and has access to better legal representation is more likely to be found 'not guilty.' The fact that individuals have been exonerated, thanks to DNA evidence as noted in Gross (2005) highlights the imperfect nature of our criminal justice system, and prohibiting the death penalty at least gives the system some chance to ensure that justice is eventually done later on. Of course, when we hear about a child being murdered or another type of horrible crime we instinctively want to put the perpetrator to death. We feel that as a collective, moral consciousness about many crimes, not just crimes that can receive the death penalty, like rape. Even someone who has his or her life savings taken away may feel as if the perpetrator deserves death. Punishments within the justice system cannot be decided solely on emotions. Of course, it is true that the justice system is a work in progress and there are necessary reforms that must be

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