Preview

Death Penalty

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
552 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Death Penalty
Andrew Hoey
Hour7
Composition rough draft
Death penalty Death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial decree that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence, while the actual process of killing the person is an execution. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. There are two sides for the death penalty. Some people disagree with the death penalty and some people are for it. There are many reasons why people are for it and why people are not for it. People that are for the death penalty have many reasons for that such as: The death penalty gives closure to the victim's families who have suffered so much. It creates another form of crime deterrent. Justice is better served. Our justice system shows more sympathy for criminals than it does victims. It provides a deterrent for prisoners already serving a life sentence. DNA testing and other methods of modern crime scene science can now effectively eliminate almost all uncertainty as to a person's guilt or innocence. Prisoner parole or escapes can give criminals another chance to kill. It contributes to the problem of overpopulation in the prison system. It gives prosecutors another bargaining chip in the plea bargain process, which is essential in cutting costs in an overcrowded court system. There are also many reasons for why people think the death penalty should be banned: Financial costs to taxpayers of capital punishment is several times that of keeping someone in prison for life. It is barbaric and violates the "cruel and unusual" clause in the Bill of Rights. The endless appeals and required additional procedures clog our court system. We as a society have to move away from the "eye for an eye" revenge mentality if civilization is to advance. It sends the wrong message: why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong. Life in prison is a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Death Penalty

    • 4048 Words
    • 17 Pages

    Title: Point: Capital Punishment Should Be Abolished. By: Ballaro, Beverly, Cushman, C. Ames, Points of View: Death Penalty, 2009 Database: Points of View Reference Center…

    • 4048 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Death Penalty

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages

    After analyzing Ernest Van Den Haag’s case study ‘In Defense of the Death Penalty’, and Hugo A. Bedau’s ‘The Case Against the Death Penalty’, I have conflicting feelings contradict my own analysis. Ernest Van Den Haag breaks down the pros and cons of the death penalty and uses retributivism to justify death penalty and capital punishment, while Hugo A. Bedau’s article is about the inconsistency in capital punishment and in particular on the abolition of practice. Each article states key positions that make my feelings conflicted between both sides, Bedau backs up that the majority of people persecuted fight through several trails after a long period incarcerated with life sentenced to death end up guilty. (Bedau, 243) Van Den Haag key positions reflect in the retributivist statement, “eye for an eye”. (Van Den Haag, 231) I believe in both sides, and in my own opinion there is no solution for middle ground.…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Some people are against the killing of others for any reasons. Other people feel that certain crimes should be punished by death. The death penalty is a very controversial topic in the United States today and has been for a number of years, because people's life is at risk. The reviewing the numbers of facts prove that the death penalty should not be enforced. I think death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment. It should be abolished in this country it's racial discrimination, the financial cost and barbarity.…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The death penalty is an age-old punishment where a person is put to death for certain serious crimes such as murder. This punishment is intended to make potential murderers think twice before killing someone out of fear of losing their own life. Personally, I agree with the death penalty because, for a civilized society, preventing murder should be a priority. The death penalty is the most severe punishment available, as it takes a person’s life away, and in addition to serving as punishment, it also serves as a means of preventing the criminal from committing further crime. This punishment, in name alone, is an indicator of just how detrimental the individual’s crime really was.…

    • 1227 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Death Penalty

    • 1865 Words
    • 8 Pages

    “Forgiving violence does not mean condoning violence. There are only two alternatives to forgiving violence: revenge, or adopting an attitude of never-ending bitterness and anger. For too long we have treated violence with violence, and that's why it never ends.” (Coretta Scott King, Widow of Martin Luther King) Capital Punishment should be considered cruel and unusual punishment. The Catholic Church is adamantly opposed to the death penalty. The death penalty should be banned as long as there are non-lethal means to defend and protect the people’s safety.…

    • 1865 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Death Penalty

    • 370 Words
    • 1 Page

    Roy Brown is a conservative who believes in individual rights and the right to life. He believes there is no deeper violation of a citizen’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than the government killing them when they’re actually innocent. With the use of the death penalty, mistakes are highly inescapable (Brown 1).…

    • 370 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Death Penalty

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial decree that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence, while the actual process of killing the person is an execution. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" (referring to execution by beheading).…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The regretion and suffering of the criminal, who may be kept on death row for many years, makes the punishment more severe than just loosing the criminal’s life. Also some people tend to think that by executing the capital punishment other people will take it as a good lesson for his or her life and they will prevent from doing serious crimes. But the statistical evidence doesn't confirm that deterrence works (but it doesn't show that deterrence doesn't work either).Also some of those executed may not have been capable of being deterred because of mental illness or defect. Some capital crimes are committed in such an emotional state that the criminal did not think about the possible consequences.Everyone has an inalienable human right to life, even those who commit murder, executing a person to…

    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Death Penalty

    • 1747 Words
    • 7 Pages

    This paper is to look at the death penalty, in this authors opinion it is a good tool that is not being used to its potential. Serial killers and child murderers should be at the top of the list to be put to death they should get one appeal and this should be done in a speedy fashion. Waiting one year for new evidence is long enough in Texas there are 337 waiting on death row some as long as 1976.…

    • 1747 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Death Penalty - Against

    • 878 Words
    • 4 Pages

    There are many reasons to both support and oppose the death penalty. Many people can feel very strongly about whether or not they approve of this method of punishment. I feel that the death penalty is wrong, and I believe that there is much support to back this up. I believe that the death penalty is wrong because it is not an effective deterrent, racially and economically bias, unreliable, expensive, and morally wrong of society.…

    • 878 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Death Penalty

    • 406 Words
    • 2 Pages

    For this assignment I chose an article about death penalty. The author, Mario Cuomo feels that the death penalty should be outlawed. Cuomo was the governor of New York for 12 years and prevented the death penalty becoming law. He believes that the death penalty is immoral and unjust. He states that there have been many innocent people put to death and that being on death row is not as much of a deterrent as having life in prison. The article talks about how capital punishment affects races differently. Cuomo says, “Notwithstanding the execution of mass killers like Timothy McVeigh, capital punishment appears to threaten white drug dealers, white racists and white killers less frequently than those of other races. Of the last people in New York State to be executed (ending in 1963) 13 were black and one was Hispanic” (Cuomo, 2011). He thinks that life in prison is more of a deterrent than capital punishment. Inmates would rather die quickly by the electric chair or lethal injection then living the rest of their lives behind bars just to die there.…

    • 406 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Death Penalty

    • 1958 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Collins, J. J. (2013, Feb 28). The Death Penalty Has Not Been Proven to Deter Murder. Retrieved from Opposing Viewpoints In Context: http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&sou…

    • 1958 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The death penalty has risks like false accusations; where an innocent person is falsely accused. If this person was given the death penalty, then tragically an innocent life has been lost. There are also arguments stating that death is too good for the worst criminals. “Let them wake up and go to bed every day of their lives in a prison cell.” Many also argue that killing someone is morally wrong and death penalty should not be permitted. However even though there is some truth to these arguments, allowing death penalty will definitely be better for society then not having it.…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Death Penalty

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The death penalty, a topic that could be debated about for days. Should we replace the death penalty with a life-without-parole sentence? Well “many who are sentenced to death will never see the death chamber”. Or how about, when speaking of how expensive the death penalty is fox news commented “Every time a killer is sentenced to die, a school closes”. The death penalty has more cons than pros. Although people who support the death penalty may argue minor things such as the belief that murderers will get out and kill again. Those risks are little compared to what goes on to keep the death penalty in effect.…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    pointers

    • 941 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The main arguments in favor of restoring the death penalty are those of deterrence and retribution: the theory is that people will be dissuaded from violent crime if they know they will face the ultimate punishment and that people should face the same treatment that they gave out to others. Amnesty International (2013) claims that it is impossible to prove that capital punishment is a greater deterrent than being given a life sentence in prison and that “evidence….gives no support to the evidence hypothesis theory.” It seems at best that the deterrence theory is yet to be proven. The concept of ‘retribution’ is an interesting one: there is a basic appeal in the simple phrase ‘the punishment should fit the crime’. Calder (2003) neatly summarizes this argument when he says that killers give up their rights when they kill and that if punishments are too lenient then it shows that we undervalue the right to live. There are other points too in support of the death penalty, one of these being cost. It is obviously far cheaper to execute prisoners promptly rather than feed and house them for years on end. According to BBC Ethic’s guide, it is often argued that the death penalty provides closure for victims ' families.…

    • 941 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays