Capital Punishment speech

for school. just felt like putting it here

Capital Punishment. The less confronting way of saying the Death Penalty. What do you think of when you hear those two words? Perhaps you think of a show you saw on TV, such as NCIS or CSI. Both American shows, because America is the most widely known country that still enforces the death penalty. Only twelve of the fifty states have banned it. But should not the others also be forced to, under special conditions? As well as the other countries which execute Capital Punishment?  But it should not be put to use often, with the exception of extreme cases.

Imagine, if you would, a serial killer. Imagine that he has a personal vendetta against you and your relatives, and decides that he’s going to execute your family, leaving you for last. Imagine that he succeeds, but is arrested while attacking you. What do you do? The answer is to stop imagining. But if this were not hypothetical, would you prefer the man who killed your loved ones was allowed to live, or that he was executed, albeit in a more humane way then he murdered your family; through a lethal injection? An ABC News survey in America found 65 percent were in favour of capital punishment, and about half the popultaion said it wasn’t used often enough.

However, a murderer should not be sentenced to the death penalty unless there is absolute certainty that they committed the crime, through either evidence or an admission. As many as 39 executions have been carried out in the U.S. despite compelling evidence of innocence or doubt about guilt.

An example is the case of Lindy Chamberlain in 1980. Michael and Lindy Chamberlain's daughter, Azaria, was born in 1980. Michael and Lindy took their three children on a camping trip to Uluru. One night, Chamberlain reported that the child had been taken by a dingo. A search was organised, but all that was found were some clothes, which confirmed the death of baby Azaria. Her body has never been discovered, and it is thought that it was consumed by dingos. Although the initial inquiry supported the Chamberlains' account of Azaria's disappearance, Lindy was later prosecuted for the murder of her child after the baby’s jumpsuit was found, and tests were made that apparently indicated the presence of blood in the Chamberlains' car. She was convicted of murder in 1982, sentenced to life imprisonment. Michael was convicted as an accessory to murder. New evidence emerged in 1986 when a remaining item of Azaria's clothing was found partially buried near Uluru, adjacent to a dingo lair. Five days later, the Chamberlains were released.

If Australia had enforced the death penalty, Lindy Chamberlain, mother of 4 children, could have been killed unnecesarily.

In conclusion, the death penalty should be enforced, but only with absolute certainty of the killer’s acts, and if they have a mental problem or are underage, then they should be rejected from being executed. The death sentence should be carried out only by lethal injection, similar to the type to put animals to sleep. A Death Row prisoner wouldn’t feel any pain, he’d just feel like he was going to sleep. As George W. Bush once said, “I don’t think you should support the death penalty to seek revenge. I don’t think that’s right. I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people’s lives.”