Death Penalty

The Death Penalty Whether utilizing the death penalty is right or wrong, people have been debating this since capital punishment was created. “Today, most nations that retain the death penalty reserve its use for the most heinous crimes such as murder, treason, or espionage”(Issit, par. 2). The most contentious point of capital punishment is the moral argument. Most people in support of the death penalty are blinded by vengeance, however when one takes into account morality the punishment does not fit the crime. It’s a cruel, expensive, and an ineffective sentence; no matter what crime was committed. Murder is cruel, whether its by a criminal or the government, and it is not a reasonable answer. There are no guidelines to whether someone should receive the death penalty; which makes it unfair that some criminals serve life in jail, while others are sentenced to death with the same charges. In some cases, people are sentenced to death with little proof and are actually innocent.”Nearly 300 individuals sentenced to death, 13 were exonerated after spending a combined total of 115 years surviving the horrors of Death Row for crimes they did not commit”(Ryan, par. 3). Not everyone is lucky enough to have a death sentence dropped and when they are innocent, they will desperately do anything to avoid the death penalty.These wrongful convictions then make innocent people plead guilty hoping for a lesser charge, which then throws away the thought of any chance of being innocent to the court. In the book, Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean there is a man named Patrick Sonnier who is on death row. He is sentenced to death for supposively killing two teenagers. Patrick is then falsely put to death, because it was really his brother who committed the murder. Even though he didn’t commit the crime, he did show remorse to one of the victim’s family, because he was looked at as the murderer. Placing someone on death row has some grey areas to it because of situations

Cited: "Costs of the Death Penalty." Death Penalty Information Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014. Death Penalty: An Overview. By: Issitt, Micha L., Newton, Heather, Points of View: Death Penalty, 2011 Ryan, Bill. "Abolish The Death Penalty." Chicago Tribune. N.p., 05 Jan. 2001. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.