Should The Death Penalty Be Allowed In The United States?

Should the Death Penalty be allowed in the United States? What are some pros and cons of the death penalty? Some believe that the death penalty is a clever idea, however; I feel the death penalty is a very harsh punishment. The paragraphs below will explain in detail why I am against the death penalty. The cost of having criminals on death row versus life in prison, the mentally ill criminals, and the unfairness to the criminals. For instance, it is unfair to the criminals in which the evidence against them is weak and in which it was an accident. Executing a person who could possibly be innocent is morally wrong and inhumane. I believe that for the criminals to die in such a public and painful way is cruel and unusual. It is not an effective way of handing out justice. The death penalty can also keep the victim’s families stuck in an angry stage of grief. Moreover, the death penalty might bring the opposite of what survivors of crime most need; accountability, healing and closure. Those criminals have family and loved ones too. Some of them even have a wife and children, why should they suffer by seeing or knowing that their loved one is being sentenced to death?
Some of them are not even competent enough to stand on trial nevertheless know what they did. I feel that those criminals who are mentally ill should have a chance for rehabilitation. For example, instead of being put on death row, those with a mental illness should be sent to a mental hospital. Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. There are some serious mental illnesses and they include major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and borderline personality