Death Penalty

Jenna Diasselliss

English 101 - Section 5

10 April 2006

Death Penalty

Should the punishment always fit the crime? If you are convicted of murder in any degree, yes. One form of punishment that I support fully, especially in murder trials and convictions, is the death penalty. When you commit a crime like murder, you should have to pay the consequences. When Scott Peterson was on trial for the murder of his wife and unborn child, the prosecution asked for the death penalty if convicted. Some people may have thought it unjust, but when you look at the fact that he killed a woman who was eight months pregnant with his child, the death penalty, in my opinion, was completely within reason to ask for. I do support the death penalty, but I understand that people are sometimes wrongly convicted of a crime. I also understand that its hard for the family of someone who received capital punishment to cope with the fact that their loved one did not commit the crime that they were punished for. Some people say that execution is wrong and that locking someone up for the rest of their lives is the same thing as killing them. But what if they escape? If a serial murderer escaped from prison the people of that society would again be at risk of being a victim, just because the murderer wasn’t killed by means of the death penalty.

Lethal injection is the best form of execution in my opinion. It works fast and is administered through an IV. They insert two IV’s one in each arm in case the main IV fails to work, then they give lethal doses of three different drugs. The first induces a state of unconsciousness, the second stops all muscle movements except for the heart, and the third fatal drug stops the heart. These three drugs are also used in medical comas and anesthesia. Lethal injection is among the most popular forms of execution in the united states followed by the electric chair and gas chamber. When you’re put to death my gassing they strap you down to a chair and lock you in an airtight chamber. From there they release a poisonous gas into the chamber and you breathe it in and die from asphyxia. The gas most commonly used in this method is hydrogen cyanide, the same type of gas used in the Nazi holocaust. Using this method is quite dangerous for everyone involved in the process, because you are dealing with such toxic gas. The only beneficial part of the gas chamber death for the condemned is that the individual usually loses consciousness before they die. The electric chair is only used in eleven states in America. This is the one form of execution, of the three that I speak off here, that I find cruel and unusual. The method of the electric chair is the individual is strapped into the chair, and two electrodes are attached to them, one to their head, the other on their leg to provide a full circuit. The initial voltage is around two-thousand volts, to induce unconsciousness. The persons body may even heat up to around one hundred forty degrees Fahrenheit. Although I support the death penalty for many reasons, I do know that some people are wrongly accused of a crime and are put on death row. Most of the time when that happens the evidence proving their innocence isn’t discovered until after the are executed. This was more common back when technology was not so advanced. Convicting the wrong person nowadays is much less likely than it used to be because we have better technology to test DNA. However, you have to look from the victims family’s point of view, they just want someone brought to justice for the crime committed against their loved one.

In some cases the condemned is given a pardon. A pardon is forgiveness of a crime and the penalty that comes with it. I do not support this unless there is evidence that proves the individuals innocence. Pardons, however can only be granted by sovereign power, such as a monarch, or a president. It is also associated with the word clemency, which by definition is just lessening the sentence without actually forgiving the crime itself. The reason I do not support this is because is someone convicted of murder and on death row and is well behaved the president can grant them the pardon, which seems unfair. Behaving on death row is not paying your debt to society. If you commit the crime you should have to accept the consequences whatever they may be. Another thing is that if the president thinks a certain