Death Penalty

Published on June 2016 | Categories: Documents | Downloads: 42 | Comments: 0 | Views: 388
of 2
Download PDF   Embed   Report

Comments

Content

Michelle Garnadi (7th)

God Commanded Us, “Thou Shall Not Kill”, Remember?

Four days after a Bexar County jury delivered its verdict, Ruben Cantu, a seventeen year-old Texan teenager wrote this letter to the residents of San Antonio: "My name is Ruben M. Cantu and I am only 18 years old. I got to the 9th grade and I have been framed in a capital murder case." Can you imagine how Cantu felt when he wrote the letter? Or how his family felt when a Houston Chronicle investigation suggests that Cantu was innocent a dozen years after his execution? Capital Punishment has been with us for a very long time. Britain influenced America's use of the death penalty more than any other country. When European settlers came to the New World, they brought the practice of capital punishment, which is the plague of our current society. The death penalty should be abolished because it has never been shown to deter crimes more effectively than other punishments and it involves a heightened risk of error, in spite of its profound economic consequences. First of all, it is reasonable for one to say that the main purpose death penalty serves is not to stop crime, as argued by the supporters of the punishment, but to take revenge or retribution instead. For instance, The US boasts a murder rate of 6 times that of Great Britain and 5 times that of Australia, both countries without the death penalty. There has also been an estimation by various state governments stating that a single death penalty case, from the point of arrest to execution, ranges from $1 million to $3 million per case. Other studies have estimated the cost to be as high as $7 million. The millions

of dollars spent on capital punishment cuts into resources for other community interests, such as schools, hospitals, and jobs, and yet no good result has been shown. Texas has twice Wisconsin’s murder rate. Wisconsin has no death penalty and Texas uses the death penalty the most freely. Despite of the fact that Capital Punishment violates international human right laws, the supporters of the death penalty argue that a sense of safety among the society is worth a person’s life, saying that public would feel safe by incapacitating convicted murderers. And that makes a lot of sense. But, doesn’t life imprisonment, which costs much less than the death penalty, also guarantee no future crimes? Isn't the notion of killing killers to show that killing is wrong kind of hypocritical? And lastly, does this advantage really worth the lives of innocents, who might be wrongfully put to death? Since 1973, 138 people in 26 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. Events of the past year have convinced us that defendants have been executed on the basis of invalid evidence. They may or may not have been guilty, but the fact that we have convicted people based on faulty evidence leads to a horrible likelihood — that we have executed innocent people. Not to ignore the fact that many death row inmates were convicted while being defended by least-skillful, lowest-paid lawyers. The death penalty should not be allowed in this country. We have the resources to keep society safe from criminals, so, it is unnecessary to have such an inhuman, risky, and degrading punishment. This kind of punishment wastes essential money that destroys our economy, but yet it does not deter crime. And, there also might be some reasonable doubt due to someone’s guilt. The death penalty should be abolished.

Sponsor Documents

Or use your account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Forgot your password?

Or register your new account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link to create a new password.

Back to log-in

Close