Argumentative Anti-Death Penalty English Paper (9th Grade)
THE DEATH PENALTY
The death penalty is defined as the lawful execution of a convicted prisoner who has committed a capital offense, like a homicide. Many countries all over the world perform the death penalty, including the United States. Whether or not the death penalty should be legal is one of the most controversial topics and there is an ongoing dispute in regards to cost, morals, and the possible innocence of the executed. Based off a flawed system of justice, the death penalty is nearly impossible to perfect, so the death penalty should be abolished in the United States.
The second point, economic cost, is represented by the fact that the death penalty is much more expensive to perform than a life in prison sentence is, and valuable financial resources are wasted in the process. According to ABC 7 News,
“…the bill is $137 million a year to imprison and litigate the sentence of death row inmates. If they were serving a life sentence without parole, the estimated cost to taxpayers would be $11.5 million [a year].”
The money spent on the death penalty isn’t a wise use of economic resources, as the money spent could be used to more effectively prevent and reduce crime rather than punish it.
The second reason the death penalty should be abolished is because it is barbaric. This form of punishment shows the level to which society has withered. It has sunk to a level so low that society has become a complete hypocrite in every definition of the word, justifying killing with killing. William J. Brennan, Jr., former US Supreme Court Justice, on July 2, 1976 stated the following:
"Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity, but it serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment; therefore the principle inherent in the Clause that prohibits pointless infliction of excessive punishment when less severe punishment can adequately achieve the same purposes invalidates the
The death penalty is defined as the lawful execution of a convicted prisoner who has committed a capital offense, like a homicide. Many countries all over the world perform the death penalty, including the United States. Whether or not the death penalty should be legal is one of the most controversial topics and there is an ongoing dispute in regards to cost, morals, and the possible innocence of the executed. Based off a flawed system of justice, the death penalty is nearly impossible to perfect, so the death penalty should be abolished in the United States.
The second point, economic cost, is represented by the fact that the death penalty is much more expensive to perform than a life in prison sentence is, and valuable financial resources are wasted in the process. According to ABC 7 News,
“…the bill is $137 million a year to imprison and litigate the sentence of death row inmates. If they were serving a life sentence without parole, the estimated cost to taxpayers would be $11.5 million [a year].”
The money spent on the death penalty isn’t a wise use of economic resources, as the money spent could be used to more effectively prevent and reduce crime rather than punish it.
The second reason the death penalty should be abolished is because it is barbaric. This form of punishment shows the level to which society has withered. It has sunk to a level so low that society has become a complete hypocrite in every definition of the word, justifying killing with killing. William J. Brennan, Jr., former US Supreme Court Justice, on July 2, 1976 stated the following:
"Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity, but it serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment; therefore the principle inherent in the Clause that prohibits pointless infliction of excessive punishment when less severe punishment can adequately achieve the same purposes invalidates the