Death Penalty Article

A Story by moo

An article that supports the sentiment that the death penalty should me abolished.

“I think the time has come to decide whether it’s worth the cost” " Burley Mitchell, former Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court and long time supporter of the death penalty. The issue of whether or not the death penalty should be abolished has been discussed and debated many times over the past few decades. There are many who strongly oppose it, believing that it violates human rights and takes many innocent lives. However, there are also many who strongly support it, believing that the punishment deters crime and ensures the safety of our citizens. This issue is of great importance to modern society, because we value our rights but we also value our safety; and each side comes with troubling consequences. Of the 196 countries in our world today, 140 of them have abolished the death penalty (72%). After extensive debate, the majority of the countries in our modern world has gone against the death penalty, don’t you think there are good reasons behind their actions? I believe that the death penalty should be abolished. Although there are some who say that the death penalty should definitely be retained, due to the great number of benefits it provides, I strongly disagree with these people, and support the sentiment that the death penalty must be abolished.

At birth, every human is given the right to live. However, the death penalty violates this right to live by executing the person. What good will it do to kill the person? Some say the person will pay for all the deaths they have caused. However, it is not an eye for an eye, as contained in Hammurabi’s code. Hammurabi’s code was barbaric and those type of laws are all viewed in an uncivilized light. But, we are not barbarians, we are civilized people of a new era. Taking another human’s life will not bring back those who have already died. Additionally, we, as human beings, are not perfect in every single way. So what gives us the right to kill a person, the right to take his or her life away from him or her? I urge that we respect one’s right to life, and not execute him or her needlessly. We should not act like bloodthirsty barbarians, craving a victim’s blood to be spilled. If we do support the death penalty, then we are no better than the murderers themselves. Our world has grown much more sophisticated, and if we value what we have today at all, if we value our society today, we must abolish the death penalty.

Not only is our system barbaric, but it is also filled with errors. Every since the death penalty was first implemented, hundreds of innocent people lost their lives. According to a major study done by the University of Michigan in 2014, at least 4.1% of the thousands of people sentenced to death in the US are innocent. Imagine yourself condemned to death for a crime that you did not commit. Such an unjust fate that has been lain out before you by a system supposedly dedicated to justice. This is yet another reason why the death penalty should be abolished. We have taken the lives of so many innocent people. And, even one death is too many to get wrong; what we are doing is essentially the same as murder. Is this not enough for us to realize how cruel we have been? Do we wish to continue this manslaughter, and cause so much grief and pain? Killing an innocent person is exactly what we get so worked up about in murder cases; they did unspeakable things, and when our juries and judges come to invalid conclusions and execute the innocent…that is unspeakable! If we abolish the death penalty, we can stop all this needless pain, grief, and death. We can still right what is wrong, and to do this, we must abolish the death penalty.

The opposition argues that the death penalty keeps our community safe by wiping killers out of existence, claiming that if left alive, they will pose a threat to both inmates and others outside of prison. However[YL1] , prisoners are classified based on the escape rate, type of crime, and security measurement and placed at different areas to insure the safety of the inmates and staff. So, the issue of safety should be contained quite well. Additionally, according to Ray Samuels, former Police Chief of Newark, California, “If the millions of dollars currently spent on the death penalty were spent on investigating unsolved homicides, modernizing crime labs and expanding effective violence prevention programs, our communities would be much safer.” In reality, we are making the security of our community weaker by wasting valuable resources on executions. The opposition also says that execution instead of a life sentence saves money that can be used to help the poor. In response to this point, I’d just like to say that they have it completely wrong. Executions cost drastically more than a life sentence in jail does. And, according to a retired California jurist, it costs 10 times more to implement the death penalty than it does to keep one alive in jail for the rest of his/her life. The death penalty is so much more expensive than a lifetime in jail because the Constitution requires a long and complex judicial process involving more lawyers, more witnesses, more experts, more pretrial motions, another trial for sentencing, and a longer jury selection " racking up exorbitant cost before even a single appeal is made. Finally, the opposition says that the death penalty deters crime, thus lowering homicide rates. However, the death penalty does not deter crime in the real world, at least not affectively. Statistics show that nationally, states that implement the death penalty have higher homicide rates that states that do not implement the death penalty (up to 48-101%). In addition, according to a government site, recent studies and research has confirmed that the death penalty does not, indeed, deter crime. I have established that the death penalty violates the rights given to humans at birth and takes the lives of too many innocent people to be legal. The opponent has argued their points (which I stated above), but that has only served to allow me to prove all of them false and add additional evidence to strengthen the proposition side. In conclusion, if we value our human rights, if we value the lives of all the innocent, and if we value the safety of our community, the death penalty must be abolished. It must be abolished to stop our barbaric ways, it must be abolished to right what is now wrong, it must be abolished to keep our community safe. The death penalty must be abolished.