Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those are the three basic freedoms that our country was built on. They provide the very foundation for our way of life. Every American is granted these three simple rights from birth. But what should happen when these rights are violated? What happens when one free American takes the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness from another? Gentlemen, I stand before you today in order to convince you that murderers—people who have wrenched these most precious rights from innocent civilians—do not deserve to retain them themselves. One of the central arguments for the implementation of the death penalty is that it’s existence would deter murder and other serious crimes. The argument used by those against the death penalty in such debates is that this fact has simply never been proven. Obviously, only one side can be correct. I can’t tell you which side is correct, either, because, as of yet, there is no conclusive evidence (correlations in favor of the pro-death penalty have been drawn between enforcement of capital punishment and crime rates, but no causality has been hitherto proven.) However, there is a side to this issue that is not addressed often enough, and nobody has voiced it better than John McAdams, from Marquette University’s Department of political science. He once said, “If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call." In other words, regardless of whether or not the death penalty is capable of deterring future killings, it is guaranteed to stop further murder from those who have been caught already, and in that vein, it proves its worth. Furthermore, the death penalty might not deter crimes outside prison, but it provides a significant deterrent for prisoners already faced with life in jail. If there is no greater punishment than life imprisonment, what is there to stop a criminal from killing his or her fellow inmates? Alongside this point, the death penalty provides prosecutors just one more bargaining chip to work with in negotiations for plea bargains, which can prove vital in some cases. Now, in the justice system, there will always be the question of whether or not a punishment is being used reasonably. After all, giving too many criminals the death penalty could potentially raise the probability for an innocent civilian to be wrongly killed. The truth is, however, that implementation of the death penalty is an extremely rare thing. Statistics show that there has only been one execution per 1600 murders on average since 1967, which means that capital punishment is only enforced in 0.06% of all murder cases. There isn’t a lot of hard evidence to support the theory that the death penalty provides the bereaved with closure and the feeling of justice, so I call to the witness stand an entirely different kind of evidence. I implore you all to empathize with the families of those whose lives were lost at the hands of murderers. Prodeathpenalty.com gives the account: “In 1985, 13-year-old Karen Patterson was shot to death in her bed in North Charleston, S.C. Her killer was a neighbor who had already served 10 years of a life sentence for murdering his half-brother Charles in 1970. Joe Atkins cut the Pattersons' phone lines, then entered bearing a machete, a sawed-off shotgun, and a pistol. Karen's parents were chased out of their home by Atkins. Karen's mom ran to the Atkins home nearby, where Joe then murdered his adopted father, Benjamin Atkins, 75, who had worked to persuade parole authorities to release Joe from the life sentence.” Just remember that next time you argue one way or another about the death penalty. A murderer who was spared the death penalty used his second chance at life to kill again, and this time even the man who fought so hard for his freedom was among the victims. This account is not the first time such a phenomenon has occurred, and it will not be the last until the death penalty is properly utilized. One estimate gauges the number of victims of those 1000 executed killers at 1,895. Had the death penalty never brought these murderers to justice, and they had each continued to kill at their original rates, the death toll at their hands would have reached nearly 4000, instead of the total of 2895 that it was (counting the executed killers among this figure.) Some people ask if it is morally right to implement the death penalty. But after looking at the facts, gentlemen, I feel inclined to ask if it is right not to. First of all, prison is hell. This is a well-documented realization. So there is often speculation that life imprisonment is a fate worse than death, so the death penalty is in fact a mercy, though many would claim not a deserved one. But more pressingly, could the justice system really justify chancing the escape of a convicted killer? To risk innocent lives in the name of saving the lives of killers is not a decision we can afford to make.
THE DEATH PENALTY Rate of Homicide Decreases Common sense supports the inference that if, the threat of the death penalty decreases, the rate of murders increases. Than it may be true, that if the threat had increased, the homicide rate may decrease. We may assume safely there are murders, such as those who act in passion, for whom the threat of death has little or no deterrent effect. But for many others, the death penalty undoubtedly, is a significant deterrent. (as cited in Carrington, 1978) Have you ever thought about how many criminals escape punishment, and yet, the victims never have a chance to do that? Do Crime victims receive full measure of justice? The former Theodore L. Sendak, Attorney General of Indiana delivered a speech to Law enforcement officials in Northern Indiana on May 12, 1971: “Our system of criminal law is to minimize human suffering by works or order primarily to forestall violence or aggression. In the question of the death penalty, we must ask ourselves which action will serve the true humanitarian purpose of criminal law. We should weigh the death of the convicted murders against the loss of life of his victims and the possibility of potential victims to murder. In arguments of the death penalty, there are two lives to think about. Too much emphasis is placed on the convicted murderer, the one being executed, and the victim is all forgotten. Crime Rate Increases Millions are being killed and will be killed because our justice system is not working. Millions have already been killed and will be killed every year. According to Time Magazine, there are 2,000,000 people beaten in the United States. Some are knifed, shot, or assaulted. Crime growth has been going up in the past because of too much leniency going hand in hand with the increased rate of people being victimized. There are many loop holes devised for offenders, and because of that crime rate has increased drastically. Between l960 to 1968 crime rate increased 11 times. More and more people are being murdered, raped, assaulted, kidnapped, and robbed, etc.
Deterrent in 27 States Opponents argue that there is no deterrent effect by using the death penalty. According to a study from l967 to l968, the death penalty was a deterrent in 27 states. When there was a moratorium on Capital Punishment in the United States, the study showed murder rates increased by 100%. The study also reviewed 14 nations who abolished the death penalty. The study claimed murder increased by 7% from five years before the abolition period to the five years after the abolition. The number of years on the average spent in death row is 10 years. It is known, with all the appeals, the death penalty is not swift! In fact, most murderers feel they most likely will never be put to death. If the death penalty was swift and inevitable, there certainly would be a decrease in homicide rates. Death Feared Most people have a natural fear of death- it’s a trait people have to think about what will happen before we act. If we don’t think about it consciously, we will think about it unconsciously. Think- if every murderer who killed someone died instantly, the homicide rate would be very low because no one likes to die. We cannot do this, but if the Justice system can make it more swift and severe, we could change the laws to make capital punishment faster and make appeals a shorter process. The death penalty is important because it could save the lives of thousands of potential victims who are at stake. Innocent Executed - no Proof Opponents claim lots of innocent people are wrongly executed. There has never been any proof of an innocent man being executed!! A study by Bedau-Radlet claimed there were 22 cases where the defendant have been wrongly executed. However, this study is very controversial. Studies like Markman and Cassell find that the methodology was flawed in l2 cases. There was no substantial evidence of guilt, and no evidence of innocence. Moreover, our judicial system takes extra precautions to be sure the innocent and their rights are protected. Most likely an innocent person would not be executed.
Death Penalty Saves Lives The question is whether or not execution of an innocent person is strong enough to abolish the death penalty. Remember, the death penalty saves lives. Repeat murders are eliminated and foreseeable murders are deterred. You must consider the victim as well as the defendant. The execution of the innocent believed guilty is a miscarriage of justice that must be opposed whenever detected. But such miscarriage of justice do not warrant abolition at the death penalty. Unless the moral drawbacks of an activity practice, which include the possible death of innocent lives that might be saved by it, the activity is warranted. Most human activities like medicine, manufacturing, automobile, and air traffic, sports, not to mention wars and revolutions, cause death of innocent bystanders. Nevertheless, advantages outweigh the disadvantages, human activities including the penal system with all its punishments are morally justified. As for the penal system, accidentally executing an innocent person, It must be pointed out that in this imperfect world, citizens are required to take certain risks in exchange for safety. We risk dying in an accident when we drive a car, and it is acceptable. Therefore, risking that someone might be wrongfully executed is worth saving thousand’s of innocent people who may be the next victim of murder.
Deterrence With the death penalty in effect, those who think about engaging in certain activities will think again due to the harsh consequence that is capital punishment. The death penalty is much harsher than life in prison and sends a louder message. Statistics show that as executions across the U.S. decreased, the number of murders increased.
The death penalty saves lives and money With the death penalty in effect, repeat murders are no more and future murders are deterred.
Some say it costs more to execute a person that to keep them in jail for life. However, when all costs are taken into account, it is less expensive for the person to be executed. An Eye for an Eye Life is Sacred If someone murders another person, why do they have the right to live for another 40 years. What they did ended a person’s life and affected all of those around that person. Life is sacred and when a person’s life is taken from them, capital punishment is needed. The death penalty vs. life without parole Life without parole is not a sufficient enough means of sentencing a person who deserves such a penalty. Although it the title says without parole, laws change, as do parole boards. There are many loops in the system and over time, a person who deserves the penalty can be up for parole. Final Thoughts In conclusion, the pros outweigh the cons when looking at the death penalty. With it in effect, the number of murders are decreased, it saves lives, it is cheaper than keeping someone in jail their whole life, and if you take a person’s life, you don’t deserve to life yourself. These are my pro-death penalty arguments
The American justice system should be a fair one. And to the family of the victims, nothing is fairer than to have the person responsible for your getting the same result as your loved one. If the victim’s family doesn’t desire the death penalty, they influence the decision. The point is they should be the ones the process is serving and they should not be denied the justice brought about when the killer is killed.
With the exception psychopaths, criminals are fairly normal human beings (albeit placed in tough situations). They have the ability to recognize the consequences of their actions. Most murders that require the death penalty are pre-meditated, so the ability to know the consequence is there. Case in point: The Texas murder rate in 1991 was 15.3 per 100,000. By 1999, as Texas had progressively become a bigger capital punishment user, it had fallen to 6.1. (http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html#deter)
It’s not as if a person on death row isn’t given enough chances, as in most states the conviction is automatically reviewed. With today’s top-of-the-line forensic, the chance of an innocent man being put to death is very minimal.
Civilization has always used an eye for an eye system and capital punishment is just a more refined and fair version of that. Simply putting someone in prison and giving them the possibility to either escape or commit more murder there certainly doesn’t stand up to giving to them what they gave to others. Their crimes show they can no longer be trusted with the responsibility of not being a danger to society.
As I stated before during my presentation, the death penalty is wrong. It is a morally and financially ignorant method of dealing with the wrong doer's in our society. We kill off these men and women as though we're in a barbaric society hidden in the back branches of the Amazon. Do not mistake my words for pity towards these despicable individuals, but rather as embarassment of the fact that we could still be living in a society that could continue to operate in such a primitive manner. There are different arguments as to why the death penalty should be administered; the risk of the criminal striking again, eye for an eye, cost of maintaining an inmate in prison, and so on and so forth. I call all of this "reasoning" hog-wash and simplistic gum flapping, of which it's only motive is to continue going about this matter in a simplistic manner (taking the easy way out). Let us not simply kill these people, let's finally generate a correctional system in which correction is actually administered. Dont kill them off, but force them to spend their entire lives festering in their prison cells thinking about what they did to get them selves there. If revenge is what your after, is that not far worse than simply killing them off. And as for the price of maintaining an inmate. It is expensive to carry out either sentence, so that argument is a moot point. Another reason to not enforce capital punishment is the execution of innocents. It's just wrong to take that risk, I feel as though that is all I need to say on that matter. My final argument would be the random enforcement of the death penalty. Out of about 22,000 murder crimes in the past year, only 150 were executed. What made these men and women deserve to die, but the others live? The death penalty is lacking in ability to remain constant. It is a punishment that has conditions with in conditions.If you cannot set a line on a punishment (such as, if you do such and such crime you get 2 years, and if you do this other crime you get 5 years) it should not be a part of our "correctional" system. Our legal system is too powerful to have the incorporation of swaggering, emotional opinions, especially if your teetering on the decision as to weather or not some one will die.
deterance: i said that the family of the victems would be much better off and be at peace with their loved ones more if the evil people who murdered were dead. it is only fair that if you kill someone, you should die. thats just the way it is. statistics have proved that in ares that have the death penalty, crimes that result in the death penalty decrease dramatically. this makes sense, because if people know that if they do something thhey will probably be killed, then they probably won't do it.
cost: many reliiable sources say that it costs much more to keep someone in jail for life than it does to kill them, so due to expenses we might as well just kill them. also the costs of killing them are lower than putting them in jail because living in jail for the rest of your life is much worse than death.
fairness/morality/retribution: if someone i loved was murdered, i would feel so much better about it if the murderer was dead. its that simple.
i also read many stories that were about killers who got out of jail and killed again.
i ended by saying that even though an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind we arent talking about eyes were talking about murderers who deserve to die. -brendan
The death penalty costs more than a life sentence. Adding up all the costs, several states are finding that it costs taxpayers $2 to $5 million per execution. Life in prison (40 years at $25,000 per year) costs $1 million.
A lot of times innocent people get put to death for crimes they did not commit. Nathaniel Batchelder reports that "Seven Oklahoma prisoners have been freed from death row since 1982. Robert Miller was freed from death row when DNA evidence indicated another man had committed “his” crimes. Ron Williamson came within days of execution before he was exonerated by DNA evidence in 1999. A study of the years from 1900 to 1991, (In Spite of Innocence by Radelet, Bedau and Putnam), found that 416 persons were mistakenly convicted of potentially capital crimes. Of those, approximately one-third were sentenced to death, and 23 were actually executed."
Racism: a lot of people of color are sentenced to death for the same types of crimes committed by others who get a lesser sentence.
An execution cannot give the victim his or her life back nor ease the suffering felt by their family. Far from reducing the pain, the length of the trial and the appeal procedure often prolong the family’s suffering.
Inconsistent sentencing. Approximately 16,000 murders are committed in the U.S. each year. Approximately one out of 100 people convicted of murder is sentenced to death. Those sentenced to death are not necessarily those whose crimes are the worst. Rather, they tend to be the poor, people of color, and those whose victims are white. (death penalty information center)
Capital Punishment, Justice at it’s finest Arguing the “Death Penalty” is the most inconsiderate thing heard of. People don’t think about how it deters criminals, gives closer’s to victims families, the benefit, is moraly right in the eyes of our lord, and how fairly it is applied.
-Detterence - Who wants to die? As much as these villains may not know the value of life they still want to run around raping and murdering like the twisted bastards they are. -Retribution - The murders, just the murders of the victims from these death row residents is up to 1,895 in the last 30 years. The people effected is countless though. Family and friends of these innocent people suffer everyday from their loved ones absence. All these people want is a little justice from our country that promised it in that pledge of allegiance and they deserve it from the torment these monsters put them through, by sending those bastards straight to hell. -Benefit\Cost - The cost does not come from the injection, the gas, the neuse, and definetly not from the bullets but from giving these villains time to try to wiggle out from this trouble with appeals so they can kill again. If their dead they cant come to court. Also will help with the overcrowding in jails which is costing the nation a lot of money feeding these demonic beings showing them a lot more sympathy than the criminal showed their victims. - Morality - The lord will decide when these psychos are put to the ultimate judgement and will spend forever burning in hell. The sooner we send them to hell the longer forever is. Really though morality is not something that these satanic people understand obviously, looking at the sick and twisted acts of mass murder and rape they have inflicted on others. They deserve just as much moral thought as they had when they did the deed. - Fairness - Let’s go back to pre school here. Treat others how you would like to be treated. Don’t want to be killed, then don’t kill. There has only been 1,000 death penalties in the last 30 years nationally. Hard to believe, which shows how it has only been used for the worst of the worst. When in the last year over 90 rapist have received community sentances. If their not mentally fit to stand trial, and that only backs up the fact that they are not mentally fit for this world with the twisted acts they have done.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those are the three basic freedoms that our country was built on. They provide the very foundation for our way of life. Every American is granted these three simple rights from birth. But what should happen when these rights are violated? What happens when one free American takes the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness from another? Gentlemen, I stand before you today in order to convince you that murderers—people who have wrenched these most precious rights from innocent civilians—do not deserve to retain them themselves.
ReplyDeleteOne of the central arguments for the implementation of the death penalty is that it’s existence would deter murder and other serious crimes. The argument used by those against the death penalty in such debates is that this fact has simply never been proven. Obviously, only one side can be correct. I can’t tell you which side is correct, either, because, as of yet, there is no conclusive evidence (correlations in favor of the pro-death penalty have been drawn between enforcement of capital punishment and crime rates, but no causality has been hitherto proven.) However, there is a side to this issue that is not addressed often enough, and nobody has voiced it better than John McAdams, from Marquette University’s Department of political science. He once said, “If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call." In other words, regardless of whether or not the death penalty is capable of deterring future killings, it is guaranteed to stop further murder from those who have been caught already, and in that vein, it proves its worth. Furthermore, the death penalty might not deter crimes outside prison, but it provides a significant deterrent for prisoners already faced with life in jail. If there is no greater punishment than life imprisonment, what is there to stop a criminal from killing his or her fellow inmates? Alongside this point, the death penalty provides prosecutors just one more bargaining chip to work with in negotiations for plea bargains, which can prove vital in some cases.
Now, in the justice system, there will always be the question of whether or not a punishment is being used reasonably. After all, giving too many criminals the death penalty could potentially raise the probability for an innocent civilian to be wrongly killed. The truth is, however, that implementation of the death penalty is an extremely rare thing. Statistics show that there has only been one execution per 1600 murders on average since 1967, which means that capital punishment is only enforced in 0.06% of all murder cases.
There isn’t a lot of hard evidence to support the theory that the death penalty provides the bereaved with closure and the feeling of justice, so I call to the witness stand an entirely different kind of evidence. I implore you all to empathize with the families of those whose lives were lost at the hands of murderers. Prodeathpenalty.com gives the account: “In 1985, 13-year-old Karen Patterson was shot to death in her bed in North Charleston, S.C. Her killer was a neighbor who had already served 10 years of a life sentence for murdering his half-brother Charles in 1970. Joe Atkins cut the Pattersons' phone lines, then entered bearing a machete, a sawed-off shotgun, and a pistol. Karen's parents were chased out of their home by Atkins. Karen's mom ran to the Atkins home nearby, where Joe then murdered his adopted father, Benjamin Atkins, 75, who had worked to persuade parole authorities to release Joe from the life sentence.” Just remember that next time you argue one way or another about the death penalty. A murderer who was spared the death penalty used his second chance at life to kill again, and this time even the man who fought so hard for his freedom was among the victims. This account is not the first time such a phenomenon has occurred, and it will not be the last until the death penalty is properly utilized.
One estimate gauges the number of victims of those 1000 executed killers at 1,895. Had the death penalty never brought these murderers to justice, and they had each continued to kill at their original rates, the death toll at their hands would have reached nearly 4000, instead of the total of 2895 that it was (counting the executed killers among this figure.) Some people ask if it is morally right to implement the death penalty. But after looking at the facts, gentlemen, I feel inclined to ask if it is right not to. First of all, prison is hell. This is a well-documented realization. So there is often speculation that life imprisonment is a fate worse than death, so the death penalty is in fact a mercy, though many would claim not a deserved one. But more pressingly, could the justice system really justify chancing the escape of a convicted killer? To risk innocent lives in the name of saving the lives of killers is not a decision we can afford to make.
Sources:
www.prodeathpenalty.com
www.balancedpolitics.org/death_penalty.htm
http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/death/issues.html#retribution
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty
-Julian
THE DEATH PENALTY
ReplyDeleteRate of Homicide Decreases
Common sense supports the inference that if, the threat of the death penalty decreases, the rate of murders increases. Than it may be true, that if the threat had increased, the homicide rate may decrease.
We may assume safely there are murders, such as those who act in passion, for whom the threat of death has little or no deterrent effect. But for many others, the death penalty undoubtedly, is a significant deterrent. (as cited in Carrington, 1978)
Have you ever thought about how many criminals escape punishment, and yet, the victims never have a chance to do that? Do Crime victims receive full measure of justice?
The former Theodore L. Sendak, Attorney General of Indiana delivered a speech to Law enforcement officials in Northern Indiana on May 12, 1971: “Our system of criminal law is to minimize human suffering by works or order primarily to forestall violence or aggression. In the question of the death penalty, we must ask ourselves which action will serve the true humanitarian purpose of criminal law. We should weigh the death of the convicted murders against the loss of life of his victims and the possibility of potential victims to murder. In arguments of the death penalty, there are two lives to think about. Too much emphasis is placed on the convicted murderer, the one being executed, and the victim is all forgotten.
Crime Rate Increases
Millions are being killed and will be killed because our justice system is not working. Millions have already been killed and will be killed every year. According to Time Magazine, there are 2,000,000 people beaten in the United States. Some are knifed, shot, or assaulted.
Crime growth has been going up in the past because of too much leniency going hand in hand with the increased rate of people being victimized. There are many loop holes devised for offenders, and because of that crime rate has increased drastically. Between l960 to 1968 crime rate increased 11 times. More and more people are being murdered, raped, assaulted, kidnapped, and robbed, etc.
Deterrent in 27 States
Opponents argue that there is no deterrent effect by using the death penalty. According to a study from l967 to l968, the death penalty was a deterrent
in 27 states. When there was a moratorium on Capital Punishment in the United States, the study showed murder rates increased by 100%. The study also reviewed 14 nations who abolished the death penalty. The study claimed murder increased by 7% from five years before the abolition period to the five years after the abolition.
The number of years on the average spent in death row is 10 years. It is known, with all the appeals, the death penalty is not swift! In fact, most murderers feel they most likely will never be put to death. If the death penalty was swift and inevitable, there certainly would be a decrease in homicide rates.
Death Feared
Most people have a natural fear of death- it’s a trait people have to think about what will happen before we act. If we don’t think about it consciously, we will think about it unconsciously. Think- if every murderer who killed someone died instantly, the homicide rate would be very low because no one likes to die. We cannot do this, but if the Justice system can make it more swift and severe, we could change the laws to make capital punishment faster and make appeals a shorter process. The death penalty is important because it could save the lives of thousands of potential victims who are at stake.
Innocent Executed - no Proof
Opponents claim lots of innocent people are wrongly executed. There has never been any proof of an innocent man being executed!! A study by Bedau-Radlet claimed there were 22 cases where the defendant have been wrongly executed. However, this study is very controversial. Studies like Markman and Cassell find that the methodology was flawed in l2 cases. There was no substantial evidence of guilt, and no evidence of innocence. Moreover, our judicial system takes extra precautions to be sure the innocent and their rights are protected. Most likely an innocent person would not be executed.
Death Penalty Saves Lives
The question is whether or not execution of an innocent person is strong enough to abolish the death penalty. Remember, the death penalty saves lives. Repeat murders are eliminated and foreseeable murders are deterred. You must consider the victim as well as the defendant. The execution of the innocent believed guilty is a miscarriage of justice that must be opposed whenever detected. But such miscarriage of justice do not warrant abolition at the death penalty. Unless the moral drawbacks of an activity practice, which include the possible death of innocent lives that might be saved by it, the activity is warranted. Most human activities like medicine, manufacturing, automobile, and air traffic, sports, not to mention wars and revolutions, cause death of innocent bystanders. Nevertheless, advantages outweigh the disadvantages, human activities including the penal system with all its punishments are morally justified.
As for the penal system, accidentally executing an innocent person, It must be pointed out that in this imperfect world, citizens are required to take certain risks in exchange for safety. We risk dying in an accident when we drive a car, and it is acceptable. Therefore, risking that someone might be wrongfully executed is worth saving thousand’s of innocent people who may be the next victim of murder.
-Coti
Arguments for the Death Penalty
ReplyDeleteDeterrence
With the death penalty in effect, those who think about engaging in certain activities will think again due to the harsh consequence that is capital punishment.
The death penalty is much harsher than life in prison and sends a louder message.
Statistics show that as executions across the U.S. decreased, the number of murders increased.
The death penalty saves lives and money
With the death penalty in effect, repeat murders are no more and future murders are deterred.
Some say it costs more to execute a person that to keep them in jail for life. However, when all costs are taken into account, it is less expensive for the person to be executed.
An Eye for an Eye
Life is Sacred
If someone murders another person, why do they have the right to live for another 40 years. What they did ended a person’s life and affected all of those around that person.
Life is sacred and when a person’s life is taken from them, capital punishment is needed.
The death penalty vs. life without parole
Life without parole is not a sufficient enough means of sentencing a person who deserves such a penalty. Although it the title says without parole, laws change, as do parole boards. There are many loops in the system and over time, a person who deserves the penalty can be up for parole.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, the pros outweigh the cons when looking at the death penalty. With it in effect, the number of murders are decreased, it saves lives, it is cheaper than keeping someone in jail their whole life, and if you take a person’s life, you don’t deserve to life yourself.
These are my pro-death penalty arguments
Resources
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html#deter
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
- Jack.
The American justice system should be a fair one. And to the family of the victims, nothing is fairer than to have the person responsible for your getting the same result as your loved one. If the victim’s family doesn’t desire the death penalty, they influence the decision. The point is they should be the ones the process is serving and they should not be denied the justice brought about when the killer is killed.
ReplyDeleteWith the exception psychopaths, criminals are fairly normal human beings (albeit placed in tough situations). They have the ability to recognize the consequences of their actions. Most murders that require the death penalty are pre-meditated, so the ability to know the consequence is there. Case in point: The Texas murder rate in 1991 was 15.3 per 100,000. By 1999, as Texas had progressively become a bigger capital punishment user, it had fallen to 6.1. (http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html#deter)
It’s not as if a person on death row isn’t given enough chances, as in most states the conviction is automatically reviewed. With today’s top-of-the-line forensic, the chance of an innocent man being put to death is very minimal.
Civilization has always used an eye for an eye system and capital punishment is just a more refined and fair version of that. Simply putting someone in prison and giving them the possibility to either escape or commit more murder there certainly doesn’t stand up to giving to them what they gave to others. Their crimes show they can no longer be trusted with the responsibility of not being a danger to society.
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html#deter
www.balancedpolitics.org/death_penalty
www.religioustolerance.org
-Andrew
As I stated before during my presentation, the death penalty is wrong. It is a morally and financially ignorant method of dealing with the wrong doer's in our society. We kill off these men and women as though we're in a barbaric society hidden in the back branches of the Amazon. Do not mistake my words for pity towards these despicable individuals, but rather as embarassment of the fact that we could still be living in a society that could continue to operate in such a primitive manner. There are different arguments as to why the death penalty should be administered; the risk of the criminal striking again, eye for an eye, cost of maintaining an inmate in prison, and so on and so forth. I call all of this "reasoning" hog-wash and simplistic gum flapping, of which it's only motive is to continue going about this matter in a simplistic manner (taking the easy way out). Let us not simply kill these people, let's finally generate a correctional system in which correction is actually administered. Dont kill them off, but force them to spend their entire lives festering in their prison cells thinking about what they did to get them selves there. If revenge is what your after, is that not far worse than simply killing them off. And as for the price of maintaining an inmate. It is expensive to carry out either sentence, so that argument is a moot point. Another reason to not enforce capital punishment is the execution of innocents. It's just wrong to take that risk, I feel as though that is all I need to say on that matter. My final argument would be the random enforcement of the death penalty. Out of about 22,000 murder crimes in the past year, only 150 were executed. What made these men and women deserve to die, but the others live? The death penalty is lacking in ability to remain constant. It is a punishment that has conditions with in conditions.If you cannot set a line on a punishment (such as, if you do such and such crime you get 2 years, and if you do this other crime you get 5 years) it should not be a part of our "correctional" system. Our legal system is too powerful to have the incorporation of swaggering, emotional opinions, especially if your teetering on the decision as to weather or not some one will die.
ReplyDeletei argued for the death penatly.
ReplyDeletedeterance: i said that the family of the victems would be much better off and be at peace with their loved ones more if the evil people who murdered were dead. it is only fair that if you kill someone, you should die. thats just the way it is. statistics have proved that in ares that have the death penalty, crimes that result in the death penalty decrease dramatically. this makes sense, because if people know that if they do something thhey will probably be killed, then they probably won't do it.
cost: many reliiable sources say that it costs much more to keep someone in jail for life than it does to kill them, so due to expenses we might as well just kill them. also the costs of killing them are lower than putting them in jail because living in jail for the rest of your life is much worse than death.
fairness/morality/retribution: if someone i loved was murdered, i would feel so much better about it if the murderer was dead. its that simple.
i also read many stories that were about killers who got out of jail and killed again.
i ended by saying that even though an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind we arent talking about eyes were talking about murderers who deserve to die.
-brendan
The death penalty costs more than a life sentence. Adding up all the costs, several states are finding that it costs taxpayers $2 to $5 million per execution. Life in prison (40 years at $25,000 per year) costs $1 million.
ReplyDeleteA lot of times innocent people get put to death for crimes they did not commit. Nathaniel Batchelder reports that "Seven Oklahoma prisoners have been freed from death row since 1982. Robert Miller was freed from death row when DNA evidence indicated another man had committed “his” crimes. Ron Williamson came within days of execution before he was exonerated by DNA evidence in 1999. A study of the years from 1900 to 1991, (In Spite of Innocence by Radelet, Bedau and Putnam), found that 416 persons were mistakenly convicted of potentially capital crimes. Of those, approximately one-third were sentenced to death, and 23 were actually executed."
Racism: a lot of people of color are sentenced to death for the same types of crimes committed by others who get a lesser sentence.
An execution cannot give the victim his or her life back nor ease the suffering felt by their family. Far from reducing the pain, the length of the trial and the appeal procedure often prolong the family’s suffering.
Inconsistent sentencing. Approximately 16,000 murders are committed in the U.S. each year. Approximately one out of 100 people convicted of murder is sentenced to death. Those sentenced to death are not necessarily those whose crimes are the worst. Rather, they tend to be the poor, people of color, and those whose victims are white. (death penalty information center)
http://www.ocadp.org/educate/15reasons.html
http://ncadp.org/index.cfm?content=2
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAFR010132004?open&of=ENG-2AF
-Jacob Goss
Capital Punishment, Justice at it’s finest
ReplyDeleteArguing the “Death Penalty” is the most inconsiderate thing heard of. People don’t think about how it deters criminals, gives closer’s to victims families, the benefit, is moraly right in the eyes of our lord, and how fairly it is applied.
-Detterence - Who wants to die? As much as these villains may not know the value of life they still want to run around raping and murdering like the twisted bastards they are.
-Retribution - The murders, just the murders of the victims from these death row residents is up to 1,895 in the last 30 years. The people effected is countless though. Family and friends of these innocent people suffer everyday from their loved ones absence. All these people want is a little justice from our country that promised it in that pledge of allegiance and they deserve it from the torment these monsters put them through, by sending those bastards straight to hell.
-Benefit\Cost - The cost does not come from the injection, the gas, the neuse, and definetly not from the bullets but from giving these villains time to try to wiggle out from this trouble with appeals so they can kill again. If their dead they cant come to court. Also will help with the overcrowding in jails which is costing the nation a lot of money feeding these demonic beings showing them a lot more sympathy than the criminal showed their victims.
- Morality - The lord will decide when these psychos are put to the ultimate judgement and will spend forever burning in hell. The sooner we send them to hell the longer forever is. Really though morality is not something that these satanic people understand obviously, looking at the sick and twisted acts of mass murder and rape they have inflicted on others. They deserve just as much moral thought as they had when they did the deed.
- Fairness - Let’s go back to pre school here. Treat others how you would like to be treated. Don’t want to be killed, then don’t kill. There has only been 1,000 death penalties in the last 30 years nationally. Hard to believe, which shows how it has only been used for the worst of the worst. When in the last year over 90 rapist have received community sentances. If their not mentally fit to stand trial, and that only backs up the fact that they are not mentally fit for this world with the twisted acts they have done.
charlie o^^^^^^^
ReplyDelete