Against Death Penalty

Against Death Penalty

Jake Tammara

Period 1 Civics[pic 1]

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty is a big topic being debated on today and is a very controversial subject. I believe the death penalty should be outlawed in the United States. The death penalty should not be legal in the U.S. because it is inhumane to take a life as a punishment, People sentenced to death could be innocent, and the death penalty does not teach a lesson to criminals.

        Capital punishment refers to the termination of the life of a person in accordance with a sentence of a court after a person has been convicted of a capital crime. Most people have an opinion on capital punishment. Many people oppose capital punishment because they believe it is wrong, but on the other hand, many support it because they believe that people who take someone’s life should have their life taken as a punishment. The truth is that capital punishment is a misuse of power and gives in to humanity's darkest impulses. There is nothing moral or just about the death penalty in the fact that it is the intentional taking of one’s life, or, murder. Some people say that the U.S. will eventually abolish capital punishment nationally, especially since the issue is now seen as one of human rights.

        The death penalty should not be allowed because in this country or anywhere because it

Another reason capital punishment should be outlawed is because people sentenced to death could really be innocent. In the last 60 years 23 people were wrongfully executed in the United States. That is twenty-three innocent people that were killed by the U.S. government, but it is not called murder. When an innocent person is found guilty it’s bad enough, but that tragedy increases greatly when an innocent person is executed for a crime they did not commit. Cameron Todd Willingham was a man who was accused, tried, and found guilty of starting a fire that killed his three children in 1992. He was put on death row and executed in 2004. However, since his death there has been an investigation into the situation surrounding the fire that suggests Willingham was actually innocent. Even if most of the people convicted to die prove to be guilty, just one innocent person wrongly put to death is still one too many. Since 1973, 138 people have been released from death row after proof of their innocence was found. In total, each person spent an average of 9.8 years in prison. The government is allowing some innocent suspects to be executed, and until the system no longer has any flaws, the death penalty should not be legal.

The death penalty is also a poor choice in punishment because it does not teach criminals a lesson. Life in prison without parole is better to use to stop crime than capital punishment. Life in prison is a more effective warning than capital punishment because to most inmates, the thought of living a whole lifetime behind bars only to die in a cell is worse than the quick, final end of life by electric chair or lethal injection.

Works Cited

Banks, Cyndi. "Capital Punishment: Outlook." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.